Kevin, The bark is alot easier to get than you may think. If anyone in your area sells Orchids or Bonsai plants, they carry bark. Most nurseries sell it. I buy orchid bark, the same size as in Al's picture, and I buy a more decomposed one too that a soil producer here gives me, because I have a friend that works there. Ut using just Orchid bark is very good. I just use less of it to save money. The bark they use as a base for most potting soils> In fact if your were to strain any potting soil out, the only thing left behind would probably be the bark size you need.Plus the perlite and vermiculite if any... I never use bark mulch, but if I was deperate and that is all I could use, I would strain that too and use it. Use the stuff left in the strainer once all the tiny fines hit the ground. Throw that stuff on the ground in your Garden..:-) Trust me, if your Garden center sells any orchid bark, small size, you are in luck...:-) Hope this helps. Please let me know how it goes ok. You might run out tonight to get some now..You might even buy tons of bags like I did..lol

pistilo, actually Katrina, and even more so the several hurricanes before Katrina, did hit the tropical plant industry REALLY hard. I work for a professional interior landscaping company, and some plants simply became unavailable, or they were so scarce that the prices were outrageous and the quality lower than normal. The reason is that almost all of the tropical foliage on the east coast is produced in Florida. Some plants were damaged by the hurricane itself. Many of the other plants are grown under shade cloth for protection from the intense sun, and the hurricane ripped away the shade cloth and perhaps knocked down the supporting posts too, so the plants burned. Plus the power went out for days, so they couldn't run the irrigation systems, and the plants dried up as well. It took many, many months to be able to get decent big plants again. Some of the huge ones that take years to grow up still aren't available at all. I believe some of the growers are considering just giving up, because they are tired of rebuilding and getting knocked down over and over again. Plants are also produced in California, and some overseas, but shipping costs make it prohibitive to send to the east coast.

Isabelle is scheduled for surgery on the 18th. She was also diagnosed with entropion. This made me think about Jeeves... I'll be he didn't spend all of his years with his eyelashes in his eyes as Isabelle hasn't either. He eye lids are starting to roll into her eyes so we're having it taken care of. This is pretty common with bulldogs as they get older and the wrinkly face bulldogs like Jeeves and Isabelle are much more prone to it than some. I shopped around as this surgery can be expensive. UC Davis, our teaching hospital, cost the most, at $1500. A close second was her Eye Dr., at $1250. The vets that our area uses as a trauma hospital was only $650. Still expensive, coming off poor Dubs medical expenses but they are also the closest. Sueb, have you had your white dog checked for this recently? It could be just the way it is laying in the photo but those eyes look a bit suspicious to me. Kind of pink around the rims and bulgy. You can better judge in real life.

Based upon what Prarie love wrote, at least some people do believe that hypothyroid-induced seizures are common. Being hypothyroid and having seizures are not necessarily related, though they certainly can be. Unfortunately being that most animals do not get regular annual (twice yearly for older pets) bloodwork when they are healthy, but most people will get bloodwork done when their pet has a seizure, it is often the case that low T4 is discovered right after an animal has a seizure. But the seizure itself can cause low T4, and once the animal's seizures are controlled the T4 returns to normal- or not if the animal is on phenobarbital. This is euthyroid sick syndrome- normally functioning thyroid that is temporarily suppressed due to another disease. Euthyroid sick syndrome can be caused by any disease, including a disease that causes seizures or the seizures themselves. It doesn't hurt to judiciously supplement thyroid hormone in an emergency while waiting for a full thyroid panel, which takes 1-2 weeks (having just gotten one for my dog) as long as you don't go overboard, as oversupplementing thyroid hormone can be cardiotoxic. But you are not really controlling the seizures, you are actually preventing further seizures. In other words, even if a dog's seizures are caused by hypothyroidism, giving thyroid hormone won't do anything to stop the current seizures (explaination follows). The full thyroid panel can sort out euthyroid sick syndrome from true hypothyroidism if it is done prior to starting phenobarb, usually. Some pets refuse to be classified, like my own dog. I did a LOT of reading on this lately because my pathologists were stumped when I asked how hypothyroidism, which causes decreased cellular activity, could possibly cause seziures, which are caused by increased cellular activity. I would have asked the neurologists, but they were in rounds and then left before I could catch them. But I did find the info myself, and it seems that hyperlipidemia (VERY high serum triglycerides and/or cholesterol) may lead to atherosclerosis and then ischemic encephalopathy (low oxygen to the brain) due to hemorrhage or thrombus, causing seizures or other CNS signs (called a stroke in people). There are many causes for hyperlipidemia, hypothyroidism is one. One study showed that dogs that had atherosclerosis were 51 times more likely to be hypothyroid than dogs who did not have artherosclerosis (they showed similar results for dogs with diabetes mellitus). Hyperlipidemia may also cause hypercoagulable syndrome where an animal throws clots, which can end up anywhere. Clinical signs are referrable to location of clot, so if a dog threw a clot into the brain, that would also cause ischemic encephalopathy and possible CNS signs or seizures. Of course, bloodwork would pick up hyperlipidemia (well, a complete panel would show both cholesterol and triglyceride levels; some in-house machines can't do this), so waiting for a thyroid panel just tells you why the hyperlipidemia is present. Because hyperlipidemia may have causes besides hypothyroidism, it is much more important to include cholesterol and triglycerides in a seizure work-up than to include thyroid testing. You can always go back for a cause of hyperlipidemia if needed. That said, you need to have a full thyroid panel done before a pet is placed on phenobarbital because that drug suppresses thyroid hormone in some animals. It does not always cause clinical disease and may not always need to be treated. Once on phenobarb, it is very difficult to impossible to sort out true hypothyroidism from phenobarb-induced thyroid suppression. Without clinical signs though, there doesn't seem to be a need for treatment. Atherosclerosis appears to be rare in dogs overall, but common in dogs with hypothyroidism and diabetes mellitus. The actual incidence is unknown because you need either MRI, CT, or a necropsy to diagnose it. Most people don't have access to MRI or CT for their pets either because of expense or because it isn't available. And most people refuse necropsy. The unfortunate part about atherosclerosis is that once it is in the brain, you can't get rid of it, even by treating the underlying cause. If you can get the animal to stop having seizures and if there isn't too much permanent damage and if you can treat the underlying cause, you may be able to prevent more seizures depending upon how much of the brain is affected by atherosclerosis. The damage is done, and you have to prevent further atherosclerosis by treating the disease. In some cases, the damage to the brain may be too great and the patient dies despite best efforts, even if the cause was "just" hypothyroidism. Controlling hypothyroidism would also prevent further seizures due to hypercoagulable states caused by hyperlipidemia, but the same "ifs" apply. This is why supplementing thyroid hormone when presented with a seizuring animal isn't really necessary, even if the seizures are caused by hypothyroidism. You do need to control the hypothyroidism, but that can wait until the animal stops seizing and you have at least a clue of whether or not the animal is actually hypothyroid. It appears that the reason hypothyroidism is a rare cause of seizures in dogs is that most cases of hypothyroidism are diagnosed and treated long before a patient develops clincally significant hyperlipidemia and subsequent atherosclerosis. It seems that mild hypothyroidism without clinical signs does not cause the a high degree of hyperlipidemia, so the risk of seizures in this case is very small. I guess if you ignore the clinical signs long enough and don't do screening bloodwork on a regular basis, a dog could have severe hypothyroidism and seizures. BTW, collies are prone to hyperlipidemia without hypothyroidism, so in the case of poor Shelby, testing cholesterol and triglycerides is much more important than thyroid testing. You have to know what is common in certain breeds and ages, otherwise you end up running every test in the book and that is a waste of time, money, and effort.