(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Today, I found a YouTube video featuring Charley, a cat suffering from cerebellar hypoplasia. But the thing is, Charley isn’t suffering at all! He may fall down a lot, but otherwise he’s a perfectly normal cat with some balance and motor control issues.

Cerebellar hypoplasia is a disorder found in cats and dogs in which the cerebellum is not completely mature at birth.

Usually symptoms of cerebellar hypoplasia can be seen immediately at birth in cats, but sometimes can take two months or so to become apparent in dogs. Cerebellar hypoplasia causes jerky movements, tremors and generally uncoordinated motion. The animal often falls down and has trouble walking. Tremors increase when the animal is excited and subside when at ease. (source)

The neat thing about cerebellar hypoplasia is that the animal typically isn’t in any pain and doesn’t require any special care (though if you have a large dog with the disorder, for instance, it might make sense to pad pointy objects just to be safe).

Meet Charley, and learn more about cerebellar hypoplasia:

Contents Copyright © 2008 Kristen King

Question

My Moses has been vomiting and don’t know why this last time was really bad it smelled awful I have a 2 story house his bed is in 1st floor the whole house reaked of his vomit what could be wrong maybe vomted 4 times today?

Answer

It’s hard to say without knowing more about the situation, but here are some questions your vet will probably have — and I do think you need to take Moses to the vet if he keeps throwing up.

• Have you changed his diet recently? In what way?
• How frequently does he throw up other than this? Is it really common, or very unusual?
• When he vomits, do you see anything in the vomit? Pieces of toys, remains of any weird food, plant matter?
• Has he gotten into anywhere he shouldn’t have been in the last few days, like the garbage can or the garage?

My dogs throw up all the time, but it’s usually because they chewed up a toy and ate it and then threw up the pieces or because they got into the trash and ate something spoiled. Those times, they throw up once and that’s it. Any vomiting that’s ongoing is dangerous because it could signify something serious. It can also lead to dehydration.

When it doubt, call your vet right away. They won’t charge you for a phone call, and that may be all you need to solve the problem.

I hope Moses feels better soon. Let me know what happens!

Do you have dog or cat questions? E-mail me!

Ty’s stopped the diarrhea but after he ate the first meal of special prescription bland diet for sick puppies for dinner last night, now he won’t touch his food at all. He’s just lying on the couch all pathetic and sad. I tried mixing a little warm water with about half a cup of his regular food into the bland diet, but the only one interested in it is Isabel, who ate a huge chunk before I realized she’d dived face first into the bowl when I turned around.

No amount of reassurance or begging will convince Ty to dig in. He’s probably confused because it’s not his regular food, and probably in pain since we took him off his meds until we can identify the source of the stomach upset.  I’m tempted to just give him some treats so he’ll at least have something in his belly, but I’m afraid of making it worse. Any suggestions?

We took Ty to the vet last week after he started limping really badly on the leg he had his surgery on before we got him, back in March. He had blown his cruciate ligament in his left rear leg and needed reconstruction, and after about 2 months of hobbling around was back to normal for weeks! But then he started really favoring his leg badly and couldn’t get onto the bed or couch without our help, so we knew something was wrong.

After being poked and prodded at for what seemed like an eternity, Ty was whisked away to x-ray while I waited nervously in the exam room. Then they brought him back and we waited nervously together. Then the doctor came in and confessed that she can’t really say what the problem is, but there’s some definitely inflammation, and if it doesn’t get better in 2-3 weeks we need to consult an orthopedic surgeon. Gulp. He might need to undergo another surgery.

In the hopes of avoiding that, his doctor prescribed Rimadyl, a brand of doggie NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) carprofen, which is comparable to asprin. He’s on a 2-week regimen of one and a half tablets a day accompanied by limited physical activity, which we hope will reduce the inflammation and get him back to full mobility with no pain (or surgery!). After a few days on the drug, he seemed to be feeling a little better.

But then I got home on Sunday night to a house that smelled like poo. And I don’t mean, “Wow, I can smell the litterbox from here,” but more like, “Wow, did someone come in and smear a sheetrock pail of dog feces all over my walls?” Of course I assumed it was crap-in-the-house-daily Pickles, but imagine my surprise when I found her sitting pretty in a clean crate next to Ty, who was huddled in the only poo-free corner of his gigantic poo-filled crate.

The term “explosive diarrhea” does not do it justice. Nor does the term “disgusting” even begin to describe the clean-up process, which took close to an hour, during which time Ty also vomited twice (fortunately this time on the linoleum in the mudroom area).

We figured it stemmed from a dietary change since we’d run out of his food for breakfast that morning and supplemented with Pickles’ food until dinnertime, when we had more, but Jesse just called me to let me know that he came home from a busy day at work to find the crate once again full of poo, with Ty looking more ashamed of himself than ever. (The poor thing has never had an accident in the house before this, and he seems to feel quite guilty about it.)

I called the vet and she told me to take him off the Rimadyl and put him on a bland diet for a few days to settle his tummy. If he’s still sick in 24 hours, we have to take him back in. My poor gimpy, poopy, pukey baby…