You guys demonstrate my theory that cottonmouths are "passive-aggressive." Dangerous in that they don't move out of the path, often, and people who are not alert can step on them. Tales of them chasing people are usually highly exaggerated. This isn't to say it can't happen. Just that it's not a common behavior. My best cottonmouth story involved canoeing by myself on Rock Springs Run. I was in an area we call the Flats. Very shallow water, with a lot of grassy vegetation. Makes for slow canoeing as you try to glide through without digging up the bottom. I spotted a cottonmouth in the water, about 2 1/2 feet long, and close to the shore. It had a dead fish in its mouth. I don't think it killed the fish, but I can't be sure of that. But the fish looked REAL dead. It was a panfish of some type (bluegill, shellcracker, one of those) and quite wide, and this snake was trying its best to figure out how to swallow it. The snake worked its mouth slowly around the body of the fish, which was way, WAY too wide for it to swallow, and even tried to force it down sideways. The fish was probably ten inches long and no way was that snake going to get it down sideways. I let the canoe drift over fairly close, as I was enjoying the show. The snake finally began working its way towards the head of the fish, where it would have had the best chance to get it down, but suddenly noticed me or my canoe slowly nearing. If snakes could change expression, this one's eyes would have bugged out and his mouth would have dropped open. If they could talk, he would have been yelling "Holy Sheepdip! Where'd THAT come from??" He did a backflip away from the fish and took off for the weeds like a streak! It was so funny looking, I almost fell out of my canoe laughing at him. I always wondered if he came back later to finish working on the fish. But I didn't wonder about who was more scared by our encounter. He definitely was! Still...I am very careful on the river or in places where cottonmouths might lurk. They normally don't care if you approach them. I admire them, but I don't want to step on one or come face to face with one at any closer range than what I just described. I'm not NEARLY as brave as Wayne! Marcia

Wow, what a lot of really great ideas for me . . .and for all of us here. Thank you!!! I'm following a lot of it and have lost 12 pounds so far. Mainly by cutting out most carbs and white sugar,and as Kelly suggested, doing interval training. I'm also keeping bags of fresh, pre washed baby carrots, baby bell peppers and green beans to munch on when I get hungry. Last night we grilled out burgers and I had mine without the bun. It's getting easier to eat like this and I'm finding the cravings for sweets and cheese are becoming less with each day . . . thankfully! As I mentioned in an earlier post here, I wasn't vastly overweight, just at the tops of what my weight should be for my height and age. Now I'm 12 pounds lighter and my clothes fit so much better! I'd still like to drop another 8 pounds. We fly out this Thursday morning to Palm Beach and then on to the Tampa area 4 days later. I've already eaten dinner and lunches out several times since I started this weight loss drive and have found it pretty easy to eat out healthfully . . . as long as it's in a regular and not a fast food restaurant. Salads with grilled meats, nuts, etc. are my go-to's, with a lite salad dressing on the side; hold the croutons and bread sides (LOL). But, as always, I have to be so careful that "lite" doesn't contain any artificial sweeteners, as I'm extremely allergic to them, especially aspertame/aspartame. So many thanks for all the great, helpful ideas. I'll continue to read them, although I'm not sure if I'm taking my laptop with me to Florida yet. Lynn

If your dog isn't eating, then there's nothing to poop out. Is she peeing? Because if not, that is a life-threatening emergency and your dog needs to be seen by a vet NOW. Aspirin and rimadyl should NEVER be combined as serious consequences can result, especially stomach ulcers and liver toxicity. You need a washout period of a couple of days at least before changing from aspirin to rimadyl or vice versa. Add phenobarbital to the list and liver toxicity becomes even more likely. Most dogs with stomach ulcers and/or liver toxicity don't eat and don't move. I have no idea what reloxofin is. Closest I got on a search is raloxifene is an osteoporosis drug which makes no sense to me giving it to a dog for vestibular signs. Amoxicillin, while not harmful, isn't doing a bit of good. If there is an infection causing vestibular signs, it is in the brain or in the ears, and amoxi doesn't penetrate either of those tissues well enough to do any good. If I suspect an infection causing vestibular signs, my arsenal of antibiotics is ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, and doxycycline. That combination gets most of the common aerobic, anaerobic, and intracellular and tick-born causes of neurological signs. If that combo doesn't relieve at least some of the clinical signs within 3 days, then the cause of the signs isn't likely to be bacterial. Is the vet sure there isn't a back problem? Is there a head tilt? If there is no head tilt and no nystagmus (eyeballs twitching side to side) then it is not vestibular disease and probably either a brain problem or a spinal problem. Also most dogs with senile vestibular disease get over it without treatment. They usually don't just lay around, and their coordination improves obviously over a short period of time. Maybe not 100% better, but definitely better within a couple of days to a week. I strongly recommend another visit to the vet. In the least, your dog needs a chem panel and cbc to make sure that combination of drugs isn't killing her, because it can. I hope whatever is going on is easily fixable and she gets better soon.

My old lab has problems from time to time. I think it's that equilibrium problem the previous posters discussed, during her worst episode the only thing I remember the vet saying was that it was "vertigo like" and her brain goes "scrambled eggs." We thought she had had a massive stroke so took her to the vet thinking that we were going to lose her. She couldn't walk for 4 hours and then acted drunk for a few hours, then was about 15 degrees off (would walk sideways into chairs and plants) for a couple of days. More recently she has funny little episodes of losing her balance or twitching like she's having a small seizure or something, but it is all part of that equilibrium thing and that there isn't much to do about it but let the episodes pass. It can be upsetting to see though. One thing that always bothered me was that shortly before the bad episode (almost 2 years ago), our dog had two instances when she ran into a glass door hard. I've always wondered if that caused some problems with her inner ear bones that later led to this. I have a relative who works with humans with inner ear/vertigo problems and they do exercises to realign the bones or something. I wish the dog could try something like that. Good luck to you and Taco, I hope the episodes stop or are at least few and far between. (((HUGS)))