Borderblog

Photoshopped Cats

2012-02-20T07:30:00.001-06:00

I strained a tendon or muscle on our 10 mile run Friday so this is what I did yesterday while I was resting. I'm guessing Icy hopes I'm better soon.

Note our very well used scratching post!

This isn't really the look I was going for but it was so funny I included it too

Veterinary Mythbusting Part 2

2012-02-19T14:16:00.000-06:00

Feeding Dry Food Prevents Dental Disease

I can't tell you how many times I have commented on a pet's dental disease and advised a cleaning only to have the owner (surprised) respond with "but I only feed him dry food." First of all, I don't really understand how they don't notice the green, rotting teeth and pus dripping from their dog's gums. But the idea that feeding a dog only dry kibble will prevent dental disease is false. Generally speaking. The answer of course, is a little more complex.

Dry food really does not do anything to prevent plaque or tartar build-up. Canned food does not cause plaque and tartar build up. But, canned food leaves much more residue on the teeth than does dry food and may allow the teeth to become dirtier faster than dry food. (So basically that 12 year old toy poodle whose teeth never get any attention is going to have nasty teeth no matter what. They just may get nasty a year sooner on canned food.) There are not a lot of studies out there to quantify how much of a difference this makes but I would tend to believe the breed/size of dog you have has a far greater impact than whether or not it eats canned food. The exception to the rule about dry food are the foods approved by the Veterinary Oral Health Council. These foods have been shown to reduce plaque and/or tartar build up. However, they are not a complete substitute for brushing, nor will they eliminate the need for professional cleaning.

So, back to surprised owner. Once I ruin their day by telling them that feeding dry food won't prevent dental disease, they usually want to know what can. First, they need a professional cleaning Then they need to start home care! Daily brushing is the gold standard but other products can help in addition to brushing. You can use these products as an alternative to brushing but they don't do as good a job as brushing does. A list of VOHC approved products can be found here. It's best to choose one approved for plaque or plaque and tartar vs just tartar because plaque is what causes periodontal disease and gingivitis. Another thing people tend to find surprising is when they come in for an exam and are told their pet needs another cleaning. I often get a surprised and disappointed "but we had them cleaned last year or X number of years ago." I usually point out that even though we (hopefully) brush our teeth multiple times a day, floss and use mouthwash we still get our teeth cleaned every 6 months. Dogs are not all that different.

Dogs are however, different from each other. Small breeds tend to have way more dental disease than large breeds. There are exceptions to every rule, but by and large that is the trend. I have seen toy breed dogs with severe dental disease by just a a few years of age, whereas a large breed may never have significant disease. I am warning you now-do not get a toy breed dog if you are not willing to invest time and money in dental care. I see so many owners who do not heed the warnings about home care, don't get the cleaning done early when the gingivitis is reversible and the cost reasonable and then allow their pet to suffer because they can't or won't spend the money to fix it.

So basically if you want to feed your dog canned food it's ok. But no matter what you feed be prepared to care for your pet's teeth at home and allow veterinary care as needed.

And another note about VOHC products. The VOHC seal of approval is something the maker of the product seeks voluntarily. So there may be other products out there than do have a measurable impact on dental disease, we just don't know about if they have never applied for approval. Also, the application process is confidential, so there may some products that applied and failed that we also don't know about.

Veterinary Mythbusting

2012-02-16T19:18:00.000-06:00

Collies (and other herding breeds) and Ivermectin

A lot people have heard that collies, aussies, shelties, border collies (any dog with white feet) cannot have Ivemectin containing products including the popular heartworm preventative, Heartgard. This is false. There are no Heartgard sensitive breeds or dogs. Yes, there are Ivermectin sensitive dogs but the dose in Heartgard is well below the level at which any problems are seen, even in affected dogs. After all, there is a Border Collie pictured on the appropriate sized Heartgard Box. Also veterinarians would not willy-nilly distribute a product that was unsafe for significant portion of dogs (herding breeds and herding breed crosses). Well, I wouldn't, maybe others would?

Ok. So myth busted. But why are there Ivermectin sensitive breeds? Some dogs-primarily collies, but others as well (more on that later) are affected with a mutation called the Multi-drug Resistance Gene Mutation or MDR1. This mutation specifically causes a defective pump (the p-glycoprotein pump). This pump is responsible for moving certain substances into and out of cells around the body. When the pump does not work effectively higher concentrations of the drug ends up in places it shouldn't (in the case of Ivermectin that would be in the brain). Not all drugs are moved by this pump so not all drugs need to be adjusted or avoided in dogs with the mutation. However, Ivermectin is also not the only one. Others include Butorphanol, Loperamide, Digoxin,Vinblastine, Mexiletine, Doxorubicin, and Acepromazine.

It should also be noted that a dog can be homozygous normal for the mutation (not affected), heterozygous for the mutation (partially affected) or homozygous abnormal (fully affected). It's important to know what the status of your dog is before starting on these medications because it will affect the dose used in some cases.

The most commonly affected breed is the Collie with around 70% carrying the mutation. Other breeds affected include Aussies at 50%, Shelties at 15% and Border collies at less than 5%. These numbers (as well as stats on other breeds) are from the Washington State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. Note that those percentages include the heterozygous dogs as well as the homozygous mutants. Mixed breeds can also carry the gene, especially if it is a herding breed mix.

The WSU lab can check your dog's status with a simple test. They also have additional details about which drug are problems and how to avoid complications.

Who's the boss?

2012-02-14T17:06:00.000-06:00

Any guesses? I'm just not sure...

Snow

2012-02-13T15:24:00.000-06:00

This may be the only snow we get this year-which is fine with me. But I figured since I was off work early I should take some pictures of it. Besides, I don't have anything else to blog about.

Together Again

2012-02-09T14:21:00.000-06:00

We sent Jelly to join her long lost sister, Peanut Butter, early Wednesday morning.

I happened to wake up around 4:00 Wednesday and Legend wanted to go out (unusual for her). While I was waiting for her I checked on Jelly and found her coated in drool and vomit and struggling to breathe. I don't know what caused her sudden decline but I knew there was really one decision to make. Jerry stayed with her while I make a quick trip to the clinic for the medications that would put her at peace.

I was curious what a necropsy might show, but 4:30 on a Wednesday morning was not a convenient time for such a project, so I just let it go. Wouldn't change anything anyway. I really feel like she probably had cancer but I just don't know where. Maybe something will show up on the biopsies.

We are sad now, but in the long run it's probably for the best. It probably would not have been been that wonderful for her to live another 5-10 years in the garage and we had reservations about putting a house cat of that age to live in the barn. But now she is catching mice with PB across the Rainbow Bridge, or just basking in the sun...

Losing

2012-02-06T18:16:00.000-06:00

Our Jelly cat is sick. She started not feeling well early last week-decreased appetite and lethargy. She quit eating entirely in the middle of the week and baseline bloodwork and urine tests looked ok. She responded initially to anti-emetics and appetite stimulants but then progressively got worse. She has lost a few pounds over an unknown period of time as well. With her age and lack of other symptoms we are worried about cancer or maybe IBD. Sunday we decided to do surgery to look for a cause of illness and collect biopsies. There are other possible diagnostics we could have done first but but when looking for intestinal disease you typically need a biopsy anyway we we just skipped to that. Plus I can do the surgery cheaper than I can send out special tests or take her to a specialty center for ultrasound.

The surgery was very boring. Everything looked normal, which doesn't mean there isn't anything hiding. That's the point of a biopsy I guess. So, I sampled the intestines in several places.

We are waiting on the results but it will be several days. Meanwhile she is not doing well. Very lethargic, refuses to eat and drink at all, drools and gags when syringe fed and is on a pharmacy of meds. If the meds don't make a difference soon, it may not matter what the biopsies show. Keep her in your thoughts. She is a pain but we love her anyway.

Sleeping beauties

2012-02-04T17:19:00.000-06:00

Staying in bed has seemed like a good thing to do lately. It has been chilly, cloudy and rainy here for several days. I took these as we were getting ready for bed the other night. But don't let this arrangement fool you, at least some of them will be in bed with us by morning!

The Birthday Boy

2012-02-01T05:30:00.001-06:00

This handsome fellow is 11 years old today (approximately)!

When we got Zodiac I wanted a dog that could do everything, and he didn't disappoint. He really is the whole package-brains, beauty, instinct and a great temperament to boot. His titles and awards were really only limited by my time, commitment and interests. Although now retired from dog sports he continues to serve as an active therapy dog bringing joy to hospitalized children. He is my jack of all trades, foot warmer, puppy sitter and floor cleaner.

Happy Birthday Baby-Z! Hoping for many more!

Addison's Disease: Owner's perspective

2012-01-31T12:54:00.000-06:00

In the grand scheme of things, there are certainly worse things than a diagnosis of Addison's Disease.

The period of time between your dog getting sick and being diagnosed can be very scary, indeed. The symptoms of Addison's Disease (AD) can mirror that of so many other things -- things like cancer, tumors, liver failure, etc. -- all of which, in the long run, are far worse than AD.

Because this is a disease that your dog will have for the rest of its life, it is very important for the owner of an A-dog to become very educated about this disease and its treatment. The good news is that modern medicine has made this a very treatable disease! Once properly medicated, an A-dog can go on to live a completely normal life. My dog, Luke, has earned five Championship titles in agility since being diagnosed in 2009!

The key to living well with AD is to work with your veterinarian to find the proper dose of medication for your dog. There are two widely accepted forms of medications for dogs with AD. One is a daily dose of pills called Florinef. Florinef contains a steroid component and thus no other medication is required. Some dogs do very well on Florinef, although the consensus among the A-dog community is that most dogs end up needing higher and higher doses as they continue with treatment. Sometimes this leads to the dog receiving too much of the steroid component, which can cause problems. Those dogs ultimately tend to end up switching to alternate treatments.

My vet and I decided that the better option for my dog, Luke, would be Percorten-V, which is a shot that I give him every four weeks. In addition, I must give him a small amount of Prednisone daily to make up for the cortisol that his body is no longer producing. Luke gets 1.25mg per day, which is pretty miniscule. In times of stress it is often helpful for the owner to up the amount of steroids given and this will vary by dog. I have never come across a situation where my dog needs additional Prednisone. Agility trials are happy stress for him, but he does fine on his usual dose. Staying in a boarding kennel might be one situation where additional Prednisone is recommended.

Owners of dogs with AD can expect to become good friends with their veterinarians, as it will require frequent visits until the magic dose is found. Once diagnosed and given the first dose of medication, generally you will return for weekly blood tests to make sure things are progressing as they should. In these blood draws, we are checking the dog's electrolyte levels, always aiming for a happy range of Sodium (NA) and Potassium (K) levels. These levels vary depending on your vet's machine, but we shoot for a ratio between 27-40.

When the blood tests reveal that the K is starting to rise and the NA is starting to drop, it's time for another shot of Percorten (or to give higher doses of Florinef). Ideally you are hoping for this to happen within a range of 4-5 weeks. Often times dogs are grossly overmedicated (per label directions) with Percorten and I've heard of some owners going three to four months before their dog is ready for another shot. The negative aspect of this is that these overmedicated dogs often do not start to feel like themselves again until their levels start to balance out again, so the more we can avoid overmedicating, the better! Finding the perfect balance of dose & duration is something that can take a bit of time, and until you settle on that sweet spot you will be making regular trips in for blood work.

Once you get there, though, life is pretty easy! You graduate to doing blood tests quarterly, bi-yearly and then yearly at your dog's annual physical. I write the date of my dog's next shot on my fridge and give him Prednisone every morning with his other supplements. Aside from that, I don't do anything differently for Luke than my other dogs. I do watch him closely, though, and I don't hesitate to take him into the vet for blood work if he seems to be feeling punky. While most dogs settle on a single dose for Percorten and are fine there for life, sometimes there are dogs who will need adjustments later on.

There is a fantastic support group on Yahoo groups that I cannot recommend enough: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/AddisonDogs_ Most of what I know, I learned from that great group of people. It is moderated by owners of other A-dogs who have years of experience in treating this disease. There are even a couple of respected veterinarians who make appearances (most notably, Dr. Nancy Kay, author of "Speaking for Spot" and also Dr. Julia Bates, known for being one of the first veterinarians to do a study on starting with lower doses of Percorten). Often times owners of newly diagnosed A-dogs can feel tremendously overwhelmed. Having a support network of other A-dog owners is invaluable and also helps those who unfortunately are dealing with veterinarians who are not well educated about the disease or its treatment.

It costs me approximately $40/month to treat Luke for Addison's Disease. It is a paltry sum for the quality time I get to continue to spend with my dog! :o)

Karissa

Addison's Disease

2012-01-30T22:11:00.000-06:00

Also known as hypoadrenocorticism, Addison's is a disease characterized by a decrease in certain substances produced by the adrenal glands.

That makes the adrenal glands a good place to start. The adrenal glands are very small glands associated with each kidney. Normally you don't even notice them during abdominal surgery. There are two parts to the adrenal gland, the medulla and the cortex. The medulla is responsible for producing catecholamines like epinephrine. The cortex is further divided into three zones, the glomerulosa, fasciculata, and reticularis. The glomerulosa produces mineralcorticoids or aldosterone. Mineralcorticoids control electrolytes and water balance. The fasciculata produces glucocorticoids or cortisol. Cortisol affects glucose, protein and fat metabolism.

Now, about the actual disease. There are two types of Addison's-primary and secondary. By far, primary is the most common form and is an idiopathic, immune-mediated destruction of the glomerulosa and fasciculata resulting in decreased production of mineralcorticoids and glucocorticoids. The mineralcorticoid deficiency results in hypovolemia (dehydration and shock), decreased blood flow to the kidneys and decreased cardiac output (lowered circulatory ability). The glucocorticoid deficiency results in GI signs such as anorexia and vomiting as well as lethargy. Because glucocorticoids also help the body deal with stress, clinical signs may only show during stressful times in the pet's life in the early course of the disease. Typical presentations include changes in mentation, lethargy, weight loss, weakness, anorexia, vomiting, dehydration, slow heart rate, increased thirst and urination and sometimes an episodic or waxing and waning course of disease. Common labwork abnormalities include electrolyte imbalances ( increased potassium and decreased sodium), elevated kidney values, and mild anemia. Unfortunately any combination of these symptoms and abnormalities can also be suggestive of other, more common disease such related to the GI system, urinary tract or even liver. The fact that Addison's can imitate so many other diseases coupled with it's rarity can make it a diagnostic challenge and a disease that can sometimes be overlooked. This is particularly problematic because the dog will often respond will and stabilize with symptomatic therapy but crash again later-recurrent events should be a red flag! Additional diagnostics include an ECG to check for abnormalities related to increased Potassium and imaging such as radiographs and ultrasound. These may be suggestive of, but not diagnostic for Addison's.

To make a definitive diagnosis an ACTH stim test is performed. ACTH is a hormone produced by the pituitary gland in the brain that stimulates the adrenal gland to produce more cortisol. To perform the test you administer synthetic ACTH to force the adrenal gland to ramp up production. But since that part of the gland is not functioning in Addisonian dogs, there is no response and cortisol levels remain low.

Immediate treatment for Addison's disease (assuming the dog has presented in crisis) is IV fluid therapy with appropriately balanced electrolytes and replacement of glucocorticoids. Once stable there are two choices in treatments. The first one is Florinef tablets (fludrocortisone acetate). Some dogs do not respond well to this treatment and some develop undesired side effects at levels that adequately control the disease. The better option is injections of Percorten (desoxycorticosterone pivalate or DOCP) which replaces the mineralcorticoids. These injections are usually given in 25-28 day intervals and the owner can be shown how to give them at home if desired. Prednisone is given in small doses to replace the glucocorticoid deficiency. Sometimes, the amount of prednisone needs to be increased during stressful situations.

Follow up therapy involves checking electrolytes in specified intervals after the Percorten injections. This will be more frequent at first until the desired dose for the individual dog is reached. There are a variety of maintenance and monitoring protocols I have found and I won't even begin to speculate on which one is the "best" as I have never even diagnosed a case of Addison's!

Addison's is most common in middle age female dogs with no significant breed predilections. The prognosis for Addison's, once diagnosed and stable, is excellent although lifelong treatment is required. Addison's is rare in cats. Tomorrow we will have a special guest post from Karissa of Secret's Journey. She will share her experiences as an owner of an Addisonian agility dog.

Spay Day

2012-01-28T20:50:00.000-06:00

Spay Day is an annual event held by many shelters and humane organizations around the country to raise awareness about spaying/neutering or offer low cost spay/neuter services for pets that would otherwise not be altered.

Today was the day the clinic I help with decided to hold their event. It is usually held in February but last year I guess so many of the cats (we only do cats on spay day) showed up pregnant that they decided to do it earlier.

So, we had a marathon of cat spays and neuters today. This was my first time doing that many so it was a bit of an adventure. It would be one thing if we spread them out over a normal work day, took a lunch break etc, but we needed them all awake in time to go home this afternoon. This meant it was pretty much nonstop work. There were typically 2-3 animals being prepped and waiting for me as I worked on the current surgery. Just by chance we ended up with 15 males and 15 females. We started with the females so we could finish with the easy ones. I've got to say, by about #13 I was getting pretty tired and my hands were not quite as steady as when I started out. Then two of the males turned out to be females and one was already neutered. So 29 surgeries in all! We finished in under 5 hours though which equates to about 6 cats an hour.

And while this was personally a satisfying way to spend the morning, it was also rather financially satisfying so we took a quick trip to the local outlet mall. Although we did manage to leave with only a few t-shirts and socks so I got to take most of my check home!

Now resting up for a 9-10 mile run tomorrow. My dogs may never get trained again at this rate!

Chew toys

2012-01-26T13:47:00.001-06:00

I had a request to post about "safe" things for dogs to chew on. Generally speaking, there is no such thing. Sorry for the bad news. End of post.

Just kidding. It's true about the lack of truly safe toys, especially for aggressive chewers but I will elaborate on why and what is is better.

So what makes an object unsafe? Basically if an object of soft enough not to break teeth it's soft enough to be chewed into pieces and swallowed possibly causing a foreign body. It they can't chew it up then it's probably hard enough to break teeth.

Most commonly the tooth that breaks is the upper fourth premolar. This is one of the largest teeth in the mouth and is labeled Carnassial tooth in the diagram. When chewing on hard objects this tooth will frequently suffer a "slab" fracture where a slab of the tooth gets knocked off. Best case scenario this is a superficial fracture that does not penetrate into the pulp cavity (where the nerve and blood vessels are) and is not a painful injury.

Worst case scenario is a deeper fracture which leaves a hole into the pulp cavity. Not only does this cause pain (although dog may not act painful) but it allows a route for bacteria to invade and cause infection and tooth root abscesses. A fracture such as this requires extraction or root canal therapy. No one wants their pet to have a chronic toothache, surgery or go the expense of treatment! Here is a picture of a slab fracture.

Ok. So what does this all mean? Lets start with rawhides. I think rawhides are kind of medium hardness and get asked about them all the time. I advise people that while there is a risk of tooth fracture it is fairly small compared to other objects. I also tell them never to let the dogs have rawhide unattended as they can try to swallow a piece whole resulting in choking or foreign body. I give my own dogs rawhides but usually choose the rolled ones-they seem somewhat durable but not as hard as the big knotted bones. They also don't seem as prone to try swallowing the ends.

Up next, Nylabones. These are one the veterinary dentist "don't" list and are apparently one of the top causes of fractured teeth. Like rawhides though these come in varying hardnesses so in theory you could pick a softer one if you were worried. However, I also give these to my dogs. It has been some of the best money I have spent over the years! Zodiac and Holli are chewing them as I write this. I cringe a little when I see them really chomping down on the big one but I acknowledge the risk and am willing to pull the tooth or pay for the root canal. I check the teeth often and so far we have not had a chewing accident.

Other items on the doggie dentist no-no list are cow hooves and natural bones. Cow hooves are just plain hard. Bones have a whole host of problems associated with them including fractured teeth, foreign bodies, and GI upset depending on the type, size, and cooked or raw status of the bones.

Deer antlers are also on the list of things hard enough to break teeth but I have no personal experience with those.

Another reasonable choice for chewing are the product usually referred to as "bully sticks." These seem to be chewy enough to last awhile but not hard enough to break teeth. They also don't seem to chew chunks off and try to swallow them since they do get kind of stringy/chewy.

My favorite recommendation for a safe chew toy is the Kong. While there are some dogs that will chew up and ingest a Kong they are still great toys for the majority of dogs. Always choose one the right size and toughness for your dog and watch them at first to see if they are aggressive enough to destroy it. While there are other tough rubber toys that can be used for chewing the Kong is stuffable to make it enticing (dogs don't seem to like rubber much). I like peanut butter for a quick fix but if you need your dog entertained for a longer period of time or have an aggressive chewer you can stuff it full of canned food and freeze it into a Kongcicle! This is great because you can tailor it to your dog's dietary needs. Plus they don't stain carpet or leave crusty rawhide goo on your dog's feet.

So that's best rundown I can give on safe and not-safe chew toys. Basically use your best judgement for your dog and be prepared to handle a fracture or other issue if it arises. Also one of the veterinary dentists recommends the "knee-cap rule" if you are concerned about dental damage. Basically if you wouldn't want to bang it into your knee cap it's not something you should give your dog to chew on.

Running buddy

2012-01-25T07:17:00.001-06:00

I decided to take Legend with us on our run yesterday. Don't worry-I didn't plan, nor expect her to run the whole nine miles with us! But I did want to see 1) if she would like it and 2) how she would behave. Oreo used to love running with me, Zodiac not so much.

Well I'm pleased to report that not only did she seem to enjoy it but she was very well behaved! Typically when I try to walk or hike with her on leash she is straining at the end of the lead, running all over trying to look at stuff and sniff and play. But the pace seemed to suit her and she trotted along on a nice loose lead the whole time. I put her pack in the car after 3 miles. She was starting to lag a bit and I didn't want to overdo it. Although she was totally rejuvenated by the time we finished so I probably should have got her out for the last few miles!

Anyway I do see more running in her future as the weather warms up and we get more outdoor runs in. It's probably good for her to build up some additional endurance anyway.

Around here

2012-01-24T10:52:00.000-06:00

I didn't want to bore you with all the details of our life lately since not much has been going on but here is a quick summary.

Not much agility going on. Since we don't have much coming up in the way of trials we are only training on days that the weather seems acceptable. My definition of acceptable is probably different from that of my northern friends but nonetheless everyone has a standard! We have not had many nice days lately that have corresponded with days I have been home. I've been trying to work a lot lately to save up for vacations, home improvements and the tremendous amount of taxes we usually owe.

Also, my half-marathon training takes a good portion of my free time. I'm up to about 20 miles a week and today we are heading out on a nine mile run. We are also planning to book our flights today and have paid our entry fees so there is no turning back now. This is the race we have chosen-it looks really pretty. And as a special treat our moms are going with us to cheer us on-it is Mother' day weekend after all.

We had an adopter for Holli, but that fell through at the last minute so she is still here waiting for her forever home. But I'm pleased to announce she does seem house-broken now. I wouldn't leave her loose unattended all day or all night but she has not had an accident in over a month and I no longer need to take her out every 20 minutes!

I still have made no decision on the obedience thing.

I am in the midst of deep cleaning my house room by room. This is mostly a hair and dust eradication project. I'm glad to be done with three rooms but they were sort of easy. Debating on starting another or just killing time until I have to go run.

So that's what's been going on here. Not too exciting. And it's not likely to get much more exciting for another 6 weeks or so. If anyone has veterinary topics they would like covered feel free to suggest!

Stupidity pays the bills

2012-01-23T19:06:00.000-06:00

It was surprisingly quiet Monday afternoon. That should have been a sign. All of a sudden it went from quiet to kind of chaotic with two emergencies back to back. Not that the owners really seemed to think they were emergencies.

I took the first dog. The appointment was made for possible UTI. An older, unspayed, small breed dog was presented by two young girls. They were not sure of the dog's age or vaccination history. I didn't bother to ask about heartworm prevention. They indicated that the dog was drinking excessively, not eating for a week and having occasional vomiting. She was also having bloody vaginal discharge and was in heat a few weeks ago then started acting funny. That history, along with the presence of a large fluid filled organ in the abdomen made me suspicious of a pyometra (basically a pus filled uterus that can be a life threatening emergency). Bloodwork and radiographs confirmed our suspicions and off to surgery we went. Congratulations, you just had your dog spayed for more than three times the normal cost.

My employer took number two which was an underfed, overly pregnant large breed dog. Presenting complaint was possible labor with no puppies produced for several hours. Owner just wanted her "checked out." Off to surgery that one went. This is the second c-section this dog has required in her young life. Personally, I feel every dog that needs a c-section should be spayed but not all doctors feel that way. It's probably more of an ethical debate than a medical one but that's for another day maybe. I should also mention these owners provide only minimal preventive care for their dogs and there was no sign of any OFA or other genetic testing in their file. And as it turns out this time the dog had been accidently bred by the neighbor dog but they failed to have her spayed after the incident because they still wanted to raise another purebred litter from her! Congratulations, you just contributed 16 (Yes-16!) puppies to the pet overpopulation and put your dog through a significant ordeal because of your greed and irresponsibility. Not to mention the 13 puppies of questionable quality from the previous litter. Fortunately they did elect to spay her this time.

Idiots like this drive me crazy but they do make a slow day more profitable! Of course I don't own the business, which might be good as I could possibly run off all the idiots and go bankrupt!

Fostering

2012-01-22T12:15:00.000-06:00

Lots of people ask or assume with every foster dog that we will keep him or her. They also frequently comment that they could never foster because they would get too attached. I thought I would share some of my fostering secrets as well a little about the fostering experience so hopefully some of you will try it too.

First, never consider keeping the dog as an option. Realize the dog belongs to the rescue and not to you-consider it more like pet sitting for a friend. That's probably the most generalized way to keep from getting attached. For us we have a three dog limit. Plus I typically have a very specific dog in mind when I am looking for our next dog. Most of the time the foster dog does not meet that criteria. I tend to only foster dogs that meet that criteria when I am actually looking for a dog-hence Zodiac and Lyric. Also I do dog sports with my dogs and time and money limit how many dogs I can reasonably deal with in that regard!

Many rescues or shelters will work with you on what kind of pet they place with you. Foster homes are hard to get so one that is limited to a certain age, sex, etc is better than nothing. They will usually also take into account your training experience and lifestyle to get you an appropriate foster pet. Many rescues don't take in pets with aggression problems due to the safety of the foster family and their pets and the liability of adopting these animals out so this is usually not a concern.

Most rescues provide medical care but the ones I have worked with did ask the foster home to provide food for the pet. One rescue we worked with provided an appropriate sized crate for us to use as well. As a foster home our general responsibilities include crate and house-training, basic obedience and manners, using any opportunity we have to socialize the pets with other people and animals and evaluating the dog for tempermant and personality so we can write a bio. We also try to get good picture to post on the website. Different rescues will have different rules but I'm guessing most are pretty similar.

When choosing a rescue you could choose a breed rescue you are interested in, an overflowing local shelter or other group. Possibilities are endless. Personally I would choose a rescue that actively promotes their dogs-typically this means via website and petfinder as many people look for adoptable pets online You want to make sure you don't get "stuck" with a dog forever that isn't being advertised. I also choose rescues that thoroughly screen the new owners. I don't want to invest time, money and emotion into a pet that will end up being left tied to a tree with no medical care the rest of it's life. Time of fostering can vary widely but is typically 3 weeks to 3 months.

Personally, I think there are lots of benefits to fostering. Seeing a dog taken from a bad situation and ending up in a home that loves and adores him or her is a great feeling. Watching the dog learn to love, trust, play and enjoy life is truly rewarding. Fostering for an all breed rescue gave us the opportunity to live with all different types of dogs. Although most were dogs we would never normally choose for ourself it was still fun to have different ones around. If you choose to foster puppies you can get a permanent "puppy fix." Watching them play with toys and our other dogs can provide hours of free entertainment as well. But mostly, you are giving a dog a chance to have a great life when he otherwise wouldn't have.

However, be prepared for potty accidents, a few sleepless night of crate screaming and all the other stuff that goes along with adding a new dog to the household. Sometimes it goes smoother than others but usually there are at least a few days of adjustment depending on the dog and the home situation.

I would recommend everyone give fostering a try. Even if you have never adopted a dog and never plan to, it's one way to help homeless animals without making a lifelong commitment. And it can help you see how wonderful rescue dogs can be-if you didn't already know!

Before you choose a group to volunteer for these are the things I would ask

Who is responsible for vet bills, heartworm, flea prevention and food?
Are crates provided?
Who is responsible for transportation to vet visits?
Who takes dogs to meet potential adopters, do they only meet the dog after they have been approved, and who handles the actual adoption process?
How are adopters screened/what is the process?
How are the dogs promoted/advertised?
Are there any restrictions such as can the dog be boarded or traveled with?
What are the expectations as far as training/socialization?

Guess the breed

2012-01-16T20:54:00.000-06:00

About 11 years ago my dad was at Wal-mart and saw a guy giving away puppies in the parking lot. Much to the surprise of the rest of our family he was unable to return home without one.

This is Gus. We don't really know what he is but the guy mentioned something about the mother being Rottweiler and Great Pyrenees. He weighs about 100 lbs and has double hind dewclaws. So what do you think he might be?

Holli Goes Herding

2012-01-15T19:52:00.000-06:00

We took Holli to meet the sheep today. She did show interest but the conclusion was, although she might herd someday, she is not quite mature enough yet. But here is a clip which nicely concludes with her taking a pee break in the sheep pen.

And here is what she did most of the rest of the afternoon

That did not go well

2012-01-14T16:24:00.000-06:00

Legend did pretty well at the last obedience trial. We still have a lot of work to do but I thought we were definitely making progress. I was actually kind of hopeful she might Q this weekend.

Well, not so much. It was awful. I think we only passed three exercises and one was the down stay. And the heeling was passable but not in the way I would have liked. Generally she acted like I regularly beat her and even reverted back to the walking on the broad jump behavior.

I realize a large part of this is my fault. I have not committed to obedience the way I have agility. I don't know what started the stress in the first place (story of everyone's life right?) but now I really need to decide what to do. I either need to commit to retraining and "fix" some stuff and actually do a lot of proofing or just move on and focus on agility. Problem is, there are lots of things I like about obedience. I just don't like them as much as agility. It's times like this I kind of wish I only had one dog. Then I could spend all my time and money working that dog in all sports. But I have three dogs, two still working. I was actually contemplating working on a CD with Lyric-she could use some improved obedience skills. But then that's two dogs working in two sports. Lots of time involved in that. But maybe over the winter we will work on some indoor stuff on the days we can't do agility. Then we can see where we are later in the year. I definitely won't be entering any obedience trials for awhile. Actually we are not even going back tomorrow. I don't want to wait until 3PM to show, have a miserable time and then get home late. With any luck I can get home in time to take Holli out for a herding instinct test. Sounds more fun.

Patella Luxation

2012-01-12T21:25:00.000-06:00

This is a very common orthopedic disease of small dogs, although it can occur in dogs of any size. Toy poodles, Yorkies, Pomeranians, Chihuahuas, and Boston Terriers are some of the most commonly affected breeds. The patella, or knee cap, normally sits in a groove along the front of the knee joint, but in some dogs the groove is not deep enough and the knee cap slips out of place. Most of the time the patella will luxate towards the inside of the leg, known as medial patella luxation (MPL). Sometimes it will luxate laterally, or towards the outside of the leg. Lateral luxation is more likely to occur in a larger dog.

Mildly affected dogs will frequently have few to no clinical signs. Often this is an incidental finding on physical exam that the owner was unaware of. The classic clinical sign is a dog who is suddenly lame and carrying a leg, only to seemingly be magically cured after a few steps. What happens is the patella suddenly slips out causing difficulty straightening the leg due to the tendons becoming displaced. Once the patella slips back in the dog can ambulate normally again.

Patella luxation has varying degrees of severity and is graded on scale of 1-4. A grade 1 luxation can be manually luxated but will pop back into place when the pressure is released. A grade 2 luxation can be manually luxated but stays out of place when pressure is released. In a grade 3 luxation the patella is out most of the time but can be pushed back into place. In a grade 4 luxation the patella is permanently out of place and can't be pushed back in.

Although the actual act of luxating isn't very painful, over time repeated luxation and misalignment can cause arthritis and malformation of the leg bones. So, what to do? There are several surgeries that will correct this malformation but surgery is not a blanket recommendation for all affected dogs. Most dogs with grade 1 and 2 luxations will go on to live their life with minimal issues. The occasional flare-up can be treated with rest and anti-inflammatories on an as needed basis. Joint supplements such as glucosamine and chondroitin can also help. Dogs with persistent lameness or those with severe luxations are candidates for surgery so that the deformity can be corrected before causing secondary issues.

This disease does have a genetic component and affected dogs, even if non-clinical and mild should not be used for breeding. Half of all affected dogs will have bilateral involvement, but the grades can be different on each side. In my experience large breed dogs are more likely to have clinical lameness than small breed dogs-but that is generally true of most orthopedic diseases. Cats can also have patella luxations but rarely show clinical signs.

If you are curious, yes, Lyric does have bilateral grade 2 luxations. She is rarely bothered by them-when they pop out she is able to stretch her leg in such a way as to pop them back in and has never limped. One of the well-known orthopedic surgeons who taught me in school recommended I not pursue repair as long as she is not bothered by them, even as an agility dog. Any surgery involving a joint will induce arthritis so you always need to weigh how much arthritis a dog will get if surgery is not pursued, as this can vary with individual dogs and various conditions. I do keep her, and my other dogs, on a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement.

Distance work

2012-01-10T16:27:00.000-06:00

You're probably thinking this is an agility post. Well, it's not. The dogs are not the only ones doing distance work these days. I mentioned in my 2011 summary post I'd be running a half-marathon in 2012. See, my friend is having, shall we say, a significant birthday this year. She wanted to do something special, so rather than just run another 5K, or even a 10K she decided on a half-marathon. In May. The trade-off is that she has relatives near Santa Barbara that will let us use their beach house. So we get to run our half-marathon through scenic wine country and then spend two days basking in the California sunshine. Fair enough right?

Anyway to prepare I have been running 4-5 days a week and making my long run a little longer every week. I have been pleasantly surprised that adding another 1/2 mile each week has not been overwhelmingly difficult. I definitely feel tired towards the end with my legs alternately feeling like lead or just numb but it's not until I actually stop running that all the exhaustion really sets in. Then I feel a little bit like I want to die. But I'm up to 8 miles and still doing ok. That's the furthest I've ever run, even further than I ever ran in high school cross country training.

Also I tend to crave extremely unhealthy foods after my long runs. Ben and Jerry's ice cream, McDonald's fries, you name it-and if I've run more than 5 miles that day....I WANT IT! Which seems somewhat counterproductive. So I'm having a salad for lunch tomorrow. That works right? Anyway, wish me luck.

Geriatric Vestibular Disease

2012-01-08T14:19:00.001-06:00

Also known as Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome, this can be a very scary disease when you don't know what is happening. Hopefully by writing this some of you will be prepared if it happens to your pet and won't panic!

So that's a pretty long, fancy name right? But it really doesn't mean much. Geriatric obviously means old, idiopathic means we don't know the cause and vestibular has to do with the balance system. This is essentially a disease of older dogs that causes dizziness and ataxia (off-balance) for no apparent reason.

Most dogs affected are older than 8, but it seems like the dogs I have seen with this condition are significantly older than that, often at least 12 years old. It is most common in medium to larger dogs with all breeds and both sexes affected equally. Other than being older, there appear to be no predisposing factors.

The onset is typically very sudden and can be very profound. Classical presentation is a dog with a head tilt, ataxia with falling, leaning, or circling to the side of the head tilt, horizontal nystagmus (back and forth eye movements), vomiting and nausea. The dogs may be unwilling to stand and walk due to the effect of motion sickness but they are able to walk. Reflexes and strength remain normal. Many owners (and some veterinarians) will misdiagnose this condition as a stroke or sometimes a seizure. Because there is suddenly something very wrong with their very old animal most owners fear the worst and arrive at the vet clinic in tears and prepared to say their good-byes.

But this is a good news disease! And actually a great disease for the vet because is makes them look a hero when after a brief exam they get to announce that your pet will likely be fine in a few days! Although we don't know what causes it, this disease usually runs it's course over a few days to a few weeks. Dogs are usually significantly better in 72 hours with a full recovery in a few weeks Although at least a partial head tilt may remain for life. Relapses occur occasionally.

I typically recommend some baseline bloodwork to check for other underlying conditions but if an owner is on a budget this is not a mandatory part of diagnosis or treatment. Treatment is supportive with appropriate medications to fight the nausea and motion sickness and ensuring adequate food and water intake. IV fluids may be necessary in severe cases as well as assistance when walking or going out to urinate and defecate.

If signs are not improving over a few days or are progressive then advanced diagnostics such as CT or MRI may be needed to look for a brain lesion. Although brain lesions usually present with different or additional signs than vestibular cases. I have diagnosed this a handful of times and none of those cases turned out to be a brain tumor or other disease with a poor prognosis.

Inner or middle ear infection can also be a differential but this can usually be ruled out with history and examination.

As a side note true stroke in dogs is rare but you can read about it here.

This condition can also occur in cats but is quite rare. I think I have yet to diagnose this is a feline.

The Doodle Dilemma

2012-01-07T13:12:00.000-06:00

I have a pet peeve. Ok, multiple. But one of my biggest is the deliberate breeding of mixed breed dogs. Now, I don't have anything against mixed breed dogs. Best dog I ever had was a mix. And I will likely have one again. I also realize that most or all breeds of dogs we have today are some mixture of ancestral breeds put together to create a certain type of dog that eventually became a new breed. The difference is that most of those breeds were created to do something-hunt, herd, retrieve, guard, pull sleds, whatever. The "breeds" people are creating today in large part don't do anything specific. By and large most of the "designer" dogs created today are just pets. And yes, I realize some of the current breeds we have now are also just lap dogs but we have plenty of those and hopefully breeders who are working to correct all the health problems that run rampant in some of those breeds

These designer dogs are literally no different than all the mixed breed dogs in the shelter. So I absolutely fail to understand why people continue to purchase them. I can see a person going to a reputable breeder and paying large sums of money for a healthy dog who was bred to perform some task. If you need a working dog of some sort-herding, hunting, whatever then that's reasonable. But why on earth would you pay big bucks for a yorkie-poo? What is it exactly that you are paying for? It's not health I'm guessing. I'm obviously no breeder but I would think that any quality breeder of any breed would not be crossing their quality dogs with other breeds. So that means all the indiscriminate breeders and puppy mills are producing mixed breed puppies with the same problems as their purebred parents (luxating patellas, underbites, hernias and so on). And they can't be paying for a certain look because there is no standard for a mixed breed dog. Again these are largely mixed breed lap dogs dozens of which can be found at the local shelter.

I don't know if people just don't realize this or don't care, but either way buying one of these dogs continues to support puppy producers who are contributing to the pet overpopulation. At least in my opinion.

I also don't understand when a litter of whatever-poos or some similar cross comes in to have their tails docked. I am very close to refusing to dock tails of any breed but absolutely won't dock the tail of any mixed breed dog for a non-medical reason.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening!

Changing vaccine protocols

2012-01-06T19:11:00.000-06:00

Or alternatively, how the last generation of veterinarians messed up.

Vaccines are great, they save lives, keep pets and in some instances their owners safe and healthy. But the way we use them is changing. It is commonly recognized (well, by those of us that pursue continuing education) that not all pets need all vaccines every year. Vaccinating annually for "everything" has been common practice for years. That wasn't necessarily wrong-after all it worked-pets were no longer getting the multitude of diseases they used to die from, immunity from the vaccines seem to last a year, and it was a convenient interval at which to examine the pet and give the "shots." But times change, we learn about risks, benefits, and side effects. It's no different than any other medical practice like anesthesia, antibiotic use, pain management and more.

So where did veterinarians mess up? By emphasizing the importance of the vaccines and downplaying the importance of the annual exam. It was, and still is, in many clinics common practice to include the exam in the price of the vaccines, perform a free exam, or even neglect to do a thorough exam altogether. So now, just as in all other facets of medicine we know more about vaccines. We know that although very safe, they are not totally benign and can be responsible for unwanted reactions. We also know that duration of immunity is longer than 1 year for many diseases. At least 3 years for some and possibly much longer but no one wants to fund those studies.

So now we have a situation where those veterinarians who want to keep up with quality medical care are extending some vaccine intervals to 3 years. But clients have been told for years that their pet needs to come in when he is due for "shots" and so many of them don't see the need to come in if their pet is not due for vaccines.

This is an unfortunate situation for those pets that don't get seen more than every three years. Many things can change in 3 years. I can't tell you how many "healthy" pets come in for vaccines and have ear infections, dental disease, arthritis, fleas, etc. that their owners have not noticed. In addition to this some vaccines don't last for 3 years. So if your pet is at risk for these and your vet is not tailoring vaccine protocols to your pet then they may be unprotected. Also there is annual parasite testing such as heartworm tests and fecal exams depending on where you live and your pet's lifestyle. But the importance of these has also not been emphasized as they should be. If an owner does not understand the importance of examinations and parasite control they are very likely to let these things lapse since the pet is not due for vaccines. Honestly, if an adult dog comes in and the owner financially needs to choose between vaccines and heartworm testing and prevention I would rather they do the heartworm. They are much more at risk for this than parvo! But getting yearly "shots" is so ingrained in people that it's hard to convince them otherwise. It's an uphill battle for the next generation of veterinarians. Many clinics in my area still do annual vaccines. I have not always even agreed with the vaccine protocol of clinics I have worked at in the past or currently. But, I don't own any of the practices and many owners are unwilling to take this financial gamble of retraining clients and earning revenue from services other than vaccines. If a client has a particular vaccine request I am happy to oblige and help them determine the best vaccination plan for their pet.

So what do I do for my pets and why? For the dogs I do DHPP every 3 years (roughly). Probably they don't need it this often but it's what is currently recommended and I feel the risk of vaccination is low especially as none of my dogs have ever had any reactions. As long as I can get a vaccine without corona I skip that one. Corona is a mild and self limiting diarrhea of puppies and that vaccine is now on the not-recommended list. I do vaccinate all my dogs annually for Lepto. This is a disease we see occasionally, can be fatal and also can be transmitted to people and the immunity is typically a year or less. The vaccine is not perfect-only protects against a max of four strains but better than nothing. I also vaccinate annually for Bordetella. This vaccine may only last closer to six months but I don't feel my dogs are at super high risk. Even though they go to dog shows those are typically other well cared for house pets, not stray dogs at the pound, running the neighborhood, etc. Plus I see lots of vaccinated dogs that have "kennel cough" like signs so it obviously does not protect against all pathogens. Finally I vaccinate for Rabies according to law-which here is every 2 years.

The house cats get Rabies per law or per label (if I am using the special "cat" vaccine it's only labeled for 1 year) and FVRCP every 3 years (probably they don't really need this being in the house but that is the current recommendation and I feel with the newer cat products risk is pretty minimal). The barn cats get Rabies per law/label and FVRCP every three years. They also get feline leukemia vaccines annually. Some will say that after the first annual booster they are immune to leukemia for life but other studies showed variable immunity that did not last 3 years. Since this disease is uniformly fatal I elect to give it to those guys annually.

I'm not sure that was as educational as it was an inside look at the changing face of vet med but hopefully some of you found it interesting nonetheless.

The best laid plans

2012-01-04T20:04:00.000-06:00

This story requires a little background information first...

Most of the local rec centers will allow you to use their indoor walking track for free or a very nominal cost. When Ozark opened their new facility a few years ago they were no exception and this was very convenient. Well, somewhere along the way they must have decided they weren't making enough money and started charging a full day pass price of $7 to use the track. Clearly it's not reasonable to charge the same price to use the track which requires little maintenance and no support staff as it is to use the rest of the facility. So my alternative plan was to drive to neighboring Nixa, who allows me to use their track all year for a one time fee of $10.

While the Nixa track is about 20-25 minutes away it is worth the drive for those days I do my long runs and don't want to be trapped on the treadmill. Yesterday, I got off work at noon, went home for lunch, did a few chores and headed over to the gym. I was prepared with my iPod (phone actually but same difference), new sports arm band for said iPod, and my $10 to renew my pass. As I pulled into the parking lot I realized I had forgotten my ear buds. Grrr.

Options were a) gut it out for 7.5 miles to whatever they had playing at the gym, which prior experience told me would not be good, b) waste time and gas going back home to get them c) going home and running on the treadmill (which would be possibly more tortuous than running to the oldies station at the gym) or d) buying new ear buds at the wal-mart down the street. I went with option D.

So, I went to wal-mart, got new ear buds and headed back to the gym. Although I would barely consider ear buds electronics they of course come it those ridiculous plastic packages that are more difficult to get into than Fort Knox. Since my multi-purpose tool was confiscated the last time we were at the airport I really didn't have anything to open the plastic armor with other than car keys. So, I spent the next ten minutes working up a sweat in my car hacking, slashing, and gouging the dang thing open. I felt like I had worked out before I even set foot in the door.

In the end I still got in my run and was home in time to clean up before taking Zodiac to pet therapy. But I no longer take much comfort in the fact that you are supposed to able to use car keys as a weapon of self defense. And more importantly, I now have a set of ear buds for home and for car so I don't get into such a mess again.

And yes, I realize if that was the worst part of my day, my life is pretty good!

Long weekend

2012-01-02T15:14:00.000-06:00

Through as assortment of scheduling decisions I had a 5 day weekend. Nice, but doesn't pay well. But it gave us plenty of time for relaxing, training, housework, playing with dogs, training and shopping.

We got in a couple of training sessions this weekend. The first day went pretty good. I was pleased with how they both did. Yesterday, Lyric had a terrible time with discriminations. She just locked onto one thing and that was it. Wouldn't listen at all. But she is doing better with "go" which is sending to an obstacle ahead of us and allowing my to fade out the manners minder (or really just move it so it's not a target). I also introduced "back" (turn away from me) and she started working on that. We are also proofing her teeter and that seems to be going well, of course it is our teeter.

Legend worked well both days. She is making progress with "go" and "back" and we are starting to use them in various ways and in sequences. She doesn't always get it right but you can definitely see her thinking and trying to figure out what to do. It's fun to watch them learn.

We are going to have a pretty limited trialing schedule this year-during the first 6 months for sure anyway, due to other commitments, taking a break until march and spending two weeks/three weekends on our trip to nationals. So hopefully all this training pays off and the trials we do go to are good ones!

Holli is doing great. She's a bit stubborn and independent but sweet and pretty well behaved. And doing tons better on house-breaking. She loves playing with the other dogs, especially Legend.

But sometimes Zodiac gets in on the action too. I love this first one-so vicious!

But he gets worn our before Legend and Holli do!

Lyric is posing with the new Christmas quilt my mom made

Icy says "Meowy Christmoose"

Jelly, hanging out with the brownie mix

And a few videos of Holli-she's a funny girl. Of course all the best stuff happens before I can get the camera rolling.

2011

2011-12-30T16:06:00.000-06:00

January
Foster puppy Ribbon (now Leeloo) was adopted.

We were supposed to have a blizzard We didn't really, just regular Missouri snow and we attended a CE conference at a lake resort. Which is not that much fun in January. And was only marginally educational.

February
Zodiac turned 10!

Legend began her quest to qualify for AKC nationals (I won't count the less than 10 points she got in December).

March
Icy got sick and cost us a small fortune at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital but fully recovered and has probably forgotten all about it. My credit card took a little longer to forget.

Kennedy turned two

Legend finished her Open Chances title

April
Foster puppy Po (now Clancy) got adopted

Legend earned her 10th QQ
We changed species for a bit and fostered kittens

Legend finished her Open Weavers title
Lyric finished her Novice Tunnelers and Open Regular titles

May
Previous foster puppy Trip debuts in agility
A horrible tornado hit nearby Joplin

Lyric finished her AX and her Novice Weavers titles

June
We took an ill fated agility trip to Tulsa
I ran my first 5K in years with limited training
Lyric finished her MXJ after only 11 months of trialing

July
Jerry and I celebrated 10 years of marriage by going back to Hawaii

It had been two years since we lost Oreo

Legend earned her 15th QQ
Lyric earned her Open Jumpers and Elite Regular titles

August
Foster dog Stormy got adopted

We changed it up again and fostered Eva (for the second time)

I ran the 5K portion of a triathlon relay (again without enough training)

I decided to seriously take up running again
A hurricane hit the east coast, Legend had a seizure and I cancelled my long awaited trip to New England

September
Eva got adopted
Lyric picked up QQ #1
I ran 5K #3 of the year and actually earned a sort of respectable time

October
Lyric turned 5

Legend went to NADAC championships-a first national competition for both of us

Barney got a urethral obstruction and used up another life
Legend had a second seizure
I ran 5K #4 after taking a few weeks off with a bad knee but still did ok
Legend qualified for AKC nationals

November
Legend had a 3rd seizure and was officially diagnosed with epilepsy and started medication
Days later she earned QQ #19 and got the chance to run for MACh but will hold at 19 until at least March
Zodiac was sick for a couple weeks but happily recovered without incident
Legend turned 6

Holli came to be fostered

I ran 5K #5

December
Legend earned her Outstanding Elite Jumpers title
Lyric earned her Novice Touch and Go title
Holli is still here
I ran 7 miles for the first time since high school

It has been an eventful year but 2012 is shaping up to be equally as exciting-hopefully only in good ways! So far we are planning Legend getting her MACh (barring any unexpected tragedy) a trip to AKC nationals, running a half-marathon, a cruise to Alaska and who knows what else!

Snuggle Patterns

2011-12-29T13:19:00.000-06:00

Legend has never been a snuggly dog. She figured if you had time to pet her, you had time to play with her. She also doesn't like to be brushed, bathed, groomed, or really handled much. In the past, she would sometimes sleep on the foot of the bed in the corner. But if you touched her too much or bothered her she would grumble and fling herself to the floor in disgust.

Some of that has not changed. But some has. Over the last year she has become a bit more loveable. She doesn't mind to sit in my lap at trials for long periods of time. And she virtually always sleeps with me now. And not just in the corner. She squeezes herself right up next to me, as close as she can get without actually sleeping on me. And she is not about to move over! I don't know what brought about the change but I think I like my new snuggly girl!

Speaking of Legend, she has not had a seizure since starting on medication (granted its only been 6 weeks) and her bloodwork and phenobarbtital levels were all normal when I checked them. And, we got our confirmation for AKC nationals last week-see you in Reno!

The Unusual: Part 5

2011-12-28T19:39:00.000-06:00

A belated holiday gift from Borderblog...

1. Client presented with a cat in a carrier for a skin condition or wound (can't remember). I guess they thought we would not be getting the cat out of the carrier because they suggested we get a flashlight to shine in so we could see it better.

2. A client walked into the veterinary clinic to ask some questions about fleas and her pet. She asked if an RN was available to talk with her. When advised that there were none present but that she could speak with the veterinarian she replied with "well, I guess that will have to do." Really? What did she expect?

3. Client described to me in great detail all about the gay sex her dogs have and could that be a cause of the pet's current issue. In the lobby. In front of other clients. It was like a train wreck where you just can't look away.

4. Random person walks in requesting to buy Ivermectin because the feed store is closed (it was a non-holiday Thursday morning-hmmm). Upon further questioning he said he needed it because his cat had a bladder worm. He knows this because he saw her pee it out on the carpet and he picked it up in his hand and it was still wiggling. He also went on to explain that bladder worms are very rare and usually need to be removed by surgery. He acknowledged that although he know the Ivermetin would not cure his cat it would at least help. Given that absolutely none of that is true (including the existence of bladder worms) we did not sell him any ivermectin. I don't know if this person was really off his rocker or had concocted a very elaborate scheme to procure ivermectin for some unknown reason.

All of these were answers in the "breed" section of new patient forms. No editing has been performed.
1. pom, puddle, dotsun, sitsu (yes, all for one dog, exactly as written)
2. taco bell dog
3. pocket beagle
4. cat
5. southern husky (this one was actually over the phone)

And as a special treat, this episode of "the unusual" has a choose your own adventure section. In my list of ideas for this post I had a note about "alien control" but for the life of me can't remember the story that goes with that. But, I'm sure it's a good one so use your own imagination!

As a side note, how disturbing is it that my career is so strange I can't remember a story about aliens?

The lucky one

2011-12-27T06:57:00.001-06:00

Holli was on the euthanasia list at the shelter. She was just days away from going on "the truck." But she was lucky, she came home with us to wait for her forever home.

She's lucky she doesn't know she has to leave here eventually, because she seems quite content with her big yard, three playmates, and plenty of toys and bones.

And she's lucky she doesn't know about all the "breeders" who continue to produce puppies for no good reason. This, in a world where there are far more dogs than homes already. Where millions of dogs exist in shelters, and foster homes or worse yet, on euthanasia lists. And yet they feel the need to purposefully bring more puppies into the world.

And she's luckier still she doesn't know about all the families out there buying those puppies. People who want a younger puppy, one with "papers" or fancy pedigree or one that comes from a certain kennel or has a certain dog in it's heritage. People who don't think she's good enough, or frown upon a dog from a shelter because there must be something wrong with her.

Lucky for her we don't think any of those people are good enough. She can stay here with us until the perfect family comes along, the one who thinks she's the greatest dog in the world. The ones who can't believe how lucky they are to get to adopt her.

Meanwhile all those fancy, pedigreed puppies are getting to be less cute and more trouble. Some of them are ending up in the very same shelters dogs like Holli come from because their "breeders" didn't care enough to make sure they went to good homes and were taken care of and well-loved. They just wanted to collect their check.

So now, the little stray dog that nobody wanted really is the lucky one. Too bad they won't all be so lucky.

Us

2011-12-26T11:31:00.000-06:00

A few months ago we had some "family" photos taken but since they were a surprise for our parents and grandparents I couldn't post any of them. But here are a few now that I don't need to keep it a secret. We thought D Coleman Photography did a great job and would recommend them to anyone.

Merry Christmas from Borderblog

2011-12-25T11:26:00.000-06:00

Too cute not to share

2011-12-21T08:09:00.000-06:00

This is my friend's foster puppy. She and her three littermates are available through MOKAN BC Rescue. Might be mixed with terrier but super adorable!

The shelter pet project

2011-12-20T08:31:00.001-06:00

I was recently asked to write about the Shelter Pet Project which is an organization/ad campaign that encourages people to adopt their next pet. Since there is not much I feel more strongly about I agreed!

So why get a pet from a shelter or rescue? Better yet, why not?

Essentially, there really isn't anything an adopted dog or cat can't do that a "purchased" pet can. If you are looking for a companion why spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a dog that you essentially just want to pet and take for walks? If you want an agility or other performance dog I think it has been shown again and again a rescue dog can do just as well a high dollar dog. I've seen plenty of MACh and NATCH dogs with no papers or pedigrees. If you want a purebred dog you can find those too-there are plenty in shelters and breed rescues. If you want a particular color, coat, size, etc they are all out there if you spend a bit of time looking. And if you consider an adult dog you will know exactly what size it will be, what kind of coat it has, what it's temperament is like and more. If it has been in a foster home it may be house-broken, crate-trained, etc. And for less than the price of most "purchased" pets it will probably already have some or all of the following done: spayed/neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, heartworm tested, and microchipped.

If you simply look long enough you will find what you want, or maybe even a kind of dog you would not have considered. Some people spend lots of time looking for the right dog from the right breeder, why not spend that time looking for the right dog from a shelter? And if you are doing the impulse buy or getting a dog from a newspaper ad, pet store, parking lot sale or breeder you haven't researched then you are really just supporting the puppy mills and backyard breeders. Why not save a life instead? Be a part of the solution, not the problem.

We had someone look at one of our very sweet, healthy, social rescue puppies this weekend at the trial. She has the personality and play drive and fearlessness to make a great agility prospect. The person's companion said why would you want that dog when you don't know anything about it's genetics and bloodlines? Really? So a perfectly wonderful puppy should be denied a home and be allowed to die in a shelter because we don't know who its parents are? There are plenty of dogs that come papers that also come with problems. And plenty of homeless pets whose only problem is irresponsible breeders and owners who allowed them to end up on death row. Don't be that person. Have an open mind. Look at all the great rescue dogs around you.

And I know there are plenty of people reading this who are thinking yeah, that's nice, I hope those dogs all get homes, what a great story, yadda, yadda yadda. But some of you will still go on and get your next dog from a breeder. As if a rescue dog is good enough for someone else but not good enough for you. Well, you would be wrong. Take a look around you. It's not just old, ugly, mean dogs in shelters. Don't ignore the problem. Don't shop. Adopt. It won't just be the dog's life that you change.

Trial Report

2011-12-19T19:28:00.000-06:00

As you can see we had a pretty good weekend at the Christmas NADAC trial. Friday and Saturday I worked on Legend's A-frame issue. All of the runs with contacts (except chances) I used as a training run. I took her out to the middle of the ring, did one obstacle to the a-frame and then one obstacle on our way out of the ring. She definitely thought this was strange but it was a pretty successful venture. I did let her run jumpers, weavers, and chances though. We got a Q in jumpers for her O-EJC (like an MXJ for our AKC friends). She had a little bobble in weavers which put us over time. And although we didn't Q in chances it was pretty close! I feel like our training is paying off we just need more proofing and adding more complexity and distance.

Sunday I let her run everything like normal. She got another jumpers Q and tunneler Q. Her first regular course she took an off course at the discrimination. Her second run though was awesome. Huge test right off the bat-the A-frame was the second obstacle and she did it! That's the first time in months she has taken the a-frame first attempt when it has been that early in the course. Then she went on to get her fastest regular time ever, 10 seconds under 20 inch proficient course time. And first place! I was so happy with her. Her tunnelers and jumpers Q's were a little faster than normal too. Chances was a bit of a let down though. I felt it was very doable and she really didn't even try, plus she took two attempts at the a-frame which was again the second obstacle.

So, lessons learned....she is still getting faster! And she showed more excitement and drive in chances Saturday than I usually see in the ring. So maybe she really likes the distance game and if I back off a little she will relax and maybe do the contacts more reliably. My being right there doesn't seem to help, she's going to do it or she isn't so maybe the key is to hang back and not worry. Her excitement over working the distance reminded me of when we went back and reworked weave poles. She loved weave poles and started wanting to do them in the ring and was much faster at them too.

Lyric started off awesome. She Q'd in all of her first four runs picking up her novice touch and go title and two open weavers legs. I think she even made elite time in her touch and go runs. She had two great jumpers runs but was just over time on Saturday. Sunday she picked up her first elite weavers Q with a few seconds to spare. And she has a great tunnelers run with an off course but I think if she was clean she would have made elite time. She put forth a good effort in chances on Saturday but kind of pooped out on me sunday. I let Cheri try to run her in one of her regular runs but she turned out to be a true mama's girl and only did a few obstacles before leaving to find me. We didn't get any regular Q's this weekend-having a little trouble with discriminations despite having been working on that. But I'm proud of her for doing 12 runs this weekend and getting such good speed out of her!

Holli is glad to have Legend back to play with, she was getting pretty bored!

Here a few videos. I don't have a good one of Lyric, she got most of her Q's before we got the camera out and the video of her jumpers Q isn't very good.

Let sleeping dogs (and cats) lie

2011-12-13T18:42:00.000-06:00

Look at these sweet babies. You would think they are the ones training for the 10k!

Weekend over already?

2011-12-11T21:38:00.000-06:00

We had a good and productive weekend. We have the vast majority of the Christmas shopping done. And per our usual tradition we were able to purchase a tree on clearance. It's a nice tree for those who are sceptical of this method. It is however, still waiting to be decorated as we did not get to that yet. As is the rest of house, minus the one new reindeer decoration I put out.

Today the girls actually got in an agility workout. They haven't been worked in 2 weeks. I intended to take a week off after the last trial but with the weather and feeling like I had a cold coming on it stretched into two weeks. Lyric was having a bit of trouble with discriminations but Legend looked great for the most part. Which is good because we have a NADAC trial next weekend. Last trial until March! I think that's the longest break we have had in quite some time. She's running so well it will be hard to give up some of our runs as training runs, especially since she only had one a-frame "incident" in the last two trials. But I think the long term investment might be worth it. After all I just put my AKC nationals entries in the mail yesterday!

Holli is doing well. After a string of house-training accidents she is now doing much better. I think we are working on 5 days accident free now. At first she started out doing so well that I was just trusting her to go out with the other dogs and take care of business. But then I think she started doing more playing than pottying and the accidents started. So now she is getting more frequent supervised trips outside. She is doing much better. She pretty much hates her crate though. She's good overnight or if I come home from work and take a nap or work quietly in another room. But if she knows she's missing out on something it leads to incessant whining and fussing. And for the most part she's good in the house, doesn't get into much or chew stuff up but since she's not totally house broken we can't let her out unless some attention can be devoted to watching her. I'm sure her confinement after her spay will be super fun. To make things more complicated she frequently wanders the house sniffing the floor but this is not necessarily a sign of needing to pee, just something she does. On a side note, why do dogs seem to catch on to pooping outside faster than peeing? Rarely do I have trouble getting new fosters to poop outside, even the smallest of puppies.

Holli does have a Kleenex fetish. She can't resist them and will pull them out of the trash, out of the box, or anywhere else she can reach them. Where does a stray dog learn about Kleenex?

Oh, and I have now worked two days at the shelter. It went really well and I enjoyed it. I did 13 surgeries on Friday, most of them spays. I was starting to get tired at the end but not too bad. One time at work I did 16 surgeries in a morning but about half of them were cat neuters so that doesn't really count. I hesitated to apply for the job at the local spay/neuter clinic when it opened because I wasn't sure I would like just doing surgery all day every day. Now, I think I could have managed but it's nice to have some variety in my work still. Although there is something to be said for showing up at 9, working 3-4 hours, never talking to a client, not doing any paperwork and then leaving!

I finally got in a run today. I felt guilty not running all week but I was too tired and thought it might make my wannabe cold worse so I ended up taking most of the week off. Now pretty much everyone in the house feels like this.

Except Holli-she's still playing. Ahhh, puppies.

Tuesday

2011-12-08T08:53:00.002-06:00

I was unaware that it was supposed to snow overnight on Monday. But that's ok because there was really not that much. Should be no trouble at all. Which was good, because I had a full day planned. First, I was supposed to take Holli to be spayed before work. I know it seems like I should just be doing that myself but for convenience and consistency we try to keep all the records for the local foster dogs at one place. When I was working full time at All Creatures I did do all the work. But when I quit we started using the clinic our other volunteer works at and have just kept up with that since I'm kind of all over.

Anyway. Jerry left before me and said to take the main road out since people were getting stuck on the hill on the back way. So I did that and everything was fine for a few miles but then there were people getting stuck on those hills. I sat and watched and waited and decided this was going to take too long, there were traffic jams everywhere. So I turned around, took Holli back home and headed to work. I went the back way-couldn't be any worse and I have four wheel drive.

Well I got stuck twice with four wheel drive. Once going up a hill and once around a corner. Seriously how are people in regular cars making it? I'm totally disillusioned with four wheel drive right now. Anyway I was at the top of a hill watching a line of cars wait their turn slipping and sliding trying to get up the next hill. I contemplated my options. I could turn around and hope I made it back home. I could wait my turn and give the next hill a try. I could park where I was (happened to be next to a nice flat field where my truck would be safe from other sliding vehicles) and walk to work. I chose option 3. Seemed the safest at the time and it wasn't that much farther and since the day already sucked I could at least get paid.

After work I was supposed to go to the shelter where Holli came from and evaluate a litter of puppies. Then Zodiac was supposed to go to pet therapy tonight. I canceled both of those. Even if the roads were better I was pretty much done with this mess. I worked my half day and my boss took me back to my car and I drove home uneventfully. Fortunately we should have another volunteer to look at the puppies later this week when they can actually be released from the shelter. And Holli can be spayed another day.

Stupid snow. What a mess.

PS-I would have posted this on Tuesday but I had pre-written Tuesday's post over the weekend thinking I would be busy all day Tuesday. Figures. Again, Hawaii looks really good today!

Also I found that downloading the free Google Chrome web browser fixed all my problems leaving comments on certain blogs. I think google just wants to control the world.

A Christmas Message

2011-12-07T08:02:00.001-06:00

Nebraska Border Collie Rescue has this posted on their home page right now. I thought I would share it.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

with nary a thought of the dog in their heads.

And Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap,

knew he was cold, but who cared about that?

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

the dog must be loose; he's into the trash!

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

but Santa Claus with eyes full of tears.

He unchained the dog, once so lively and quick,

last year's Christmas gift, now thin and sick.

More rapid than eagles, he called the dog's name,

and the dog went right to him, despite all his pain.

Now DASHER, now DANCER, now, PRANCER and VIXEN!

On COMET on CUPID on DONNER and BLITZEN!

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!!

Let's find him a home where he'll be loved by all!!

I knew in an instant there were not gifts this year.

For Santa had made our mistake very clear.

The gift of a dog is not just for the season,

we had gotten a pup for all the wrong reasons.

In our haste to think of a gift for the kids,

there was something important that we had missed.

A dog should be family, and cared for the same.

You don't give a gift, then put it on a chain.

And I heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight,

"YOU WERE GIVEN A GIFT!! YOU WERE GIVEN A LIFE."

Author Unknown

Cancer Part 6: Histiocytoma

2011-12-06T08:42:00.001-06:00

Not all tumors are bad! I thought it was time for a good one.

Histiocytomas are also sometimes called "button tumors" because of their appearance. The classic appearance is of a small, pink, hairless mass on the face, frequently of a young dog. They can, however, appear anywhere on the body in a dog of any age.

Histiocytomas can frequently be diagnosed with cytology and surgical biopsy is rarely necessary. Also, these tumors will generally regress on their own over a period of a few weeks to up to 3 months. While you could just monitor these suspected masses for regression I do like to at least do cytology to differentiate from a mast cell tumor as those require more aggressive treatment. But if the cytology is consistent with histiocytoma I usually just recommend waiting for regression. If the owner is concerned, the cytology is questionable, the mass is not regressing as expected, or the mass is bothering the dog such that they are always breaking open and bleeding or being scratched at, then surgery is recommended. Sometimes an ulcerated or pruritic tumor can be managed with topical medications until regression.

Cytology of histiocytoma

Personally, I think this is a great use of cytology. These are the cases where cytology can save a pet and owner the stress and expense of a surgery which is usually appreciated!

This condition is rare in cats.

Cancer Part 5: Mast cell tumors

2011-12-05T08:07:00.002-06:00

Mast cells are normally occurring cells in the body which help fight parasites, viral and bacterial infections and play a part in allergic reactions. When mast cells mutate and reproduce out of control you can get a mast cell tumor (MCT). Mast cell tumors come in 3 types and which type you get makes a big difference in the treatment and prognosis.

MCTs are most common on the skin and can have a varied appearance. They may get larger and smaller as histamines are released and swelling results-like a bee sting for example), be ulcerated, itchy, or hairless. It is important to have all skin or subcutaneous masses checked as MCTs can mimic other, more benign masses.

MCTs are often easily diagnosed via cytology. It is important to know you are dealing with a mast cell tumor prior to surgery because sometimes the doctor will want to pre-treat your pet with anti-histamines. Also they will know what kind of surgical margin they should try to obtain. Once your pet has been diagnosed with a MCT the next step is surgery and histopathology (biopsy) to determine the grade (which cannot be determined by cytology).

Cytology of mast cells

Grade 1 tumors are good news. These are typically benign and complete surgical excision is considered curative. Grade 3 tumors are the bad ones. These tumors are more likely to recur, metastasize or present as multiple tumors. Surgical removal of Grade 3 tumors followed by chemotherapy is the recommended course of treatment. Grade 2 tumors are in-between. Complete excision with no findings of lymph node involvement or other metastatic disease is frequently curative. Incomplete excision can be followed with radiation and/or chemo for more complete tumor control.

Surgery alone provides a 1500 day survival of 6% for grade 3 tumors, 44% for grade 2 and 83% for grade 1 tumors. Chemotherapy protocol of Vinblastine and prednisone provided a 57% two year disease free interval post-surgery for all grades of tumors and a 45% two year survival rate for grade 3 tumors. Keep in mind most dogs in this study were grade 2 and 3 as the grade 1 dogs generally do not receive additional therapy. This protocol is relatively simple and well-tolerated. I have treated a few dogs with it and found they did very well.

Because mast cells release histamine, dogs with MCT may develop GI ulceration and may need to be treated with acid blockers for the duration of their treatment.

Cats
Mast cell tumors are uncommon in cats and most common in the skin These are usually benign and cured with surgery.

Since you asked

2011-12-04T16:25:00.000-06:00

And because I was going to mention it anyway, Zodiac is much better now. He's acting 100% normal and his appetite is almost back to normal. He has been eating all of his food, without any canned for a few days now but he's not quite got all his enthusiasm for food back yet. See, normally Zodiac does not think about, chew, or look at his food. He just dives in and gulps it down. While he did finish before Legend for the first time all week this morning, he did still stop the chew a little. But, we are almost there. Right now I have him just on sucralfate and prilosec. The tricky part is to give the sucralfate three times a day on an empty stomach and feed him twice a day. But we are doing an ok job I guess since he seems better.

So the good news is-probably NOT a tumor. And as a colleague pointed out, an ulcer would be more likely and make more sense. Which I know, but it's nice to have an objective voice remind me. Of course we don't know for sure if it was an ulcer nor will we know for sure if it was caused by long term Rimadyl use. So, to be on the safe side we are just going to switch to Tramadol. I was never sure how much the Rimadyl helped anyway, but as long as it didn't seem to bother him it was ok. Well now, maybe it bothered him.

And he's been a real angel about taking the sucralfate. See, it works better if you dissolve it and give as a slurry and he's been a real trooper. Never fighting me or refusing to swallow. So I guess if we ever need to syringe feed him that won't be an issue. But hopefully we would never have to do that!

Meanwhile the weather here is cold, wet, and nasty. That Hawaii thing looks better all the time! The girls are enjoying a week off of training but that may turn into a little longer if the weather stays like this.

Well that figures

2011-12-02T17:37:00.000-06:00

So we were watching "How the states got their shapes" on TV the other day and this particular episode was discussing how climate and natural disasters move population centers. At the end of the program they promised to announce the "safest" state. Apparently some magazine crunched then numbers based on climate and fewest natural disasters and figured this out. I have always wondered this myself, and thought great, maybe if we ever decide to move we can go wherever that is (assuming it's not too cold). Anyway, the answer is..............get this.............

Hawaii.

Figures. As much as I love Hawaii, we will probably not be moving there. Probably.

Happy Holli-days

2011-12-01T16:26:00.000-06:00

Yeah. You knew that was coming right?

Here are some better pics of Holli now that she is more settled in and playing. The vet check on her app was not acceptable so she is still available!

And here is the face of insane cuteness

And two pretty dogs

Tomorrow is my first day helping out doing spays and neuters at a semi-local shelter/low cost spay/neuter clinic. I guess I'm not technically volunteering since they are paying me but I am giving up what would be otherwise free time to help out (which they very much need) and service the community and the pet overpopulation. So it seems to benefit everyone. Can't beat that can you?

Lingering

2011-11-30T19:20:00.000-06:00

Zodiac's illness persisted all weekend. He perked up a little and begged for table food but did not eat dog food at all. I had him on Cerenia and metronidazole and decided on sunday to add omeprazole (Prilosec) to the regimen. This, along with the addition of canned i/d to his food seemed to help some. By monday morning he was eating better than he had all weekend. Then yesterday he didn't eat dry food at all and didn't finish his food even after adding canned. So, naturally I panicked and brought him to work. I did a test for pancreatitis (he has not been vomiting, or having diarrhea though) and it was negative. I repeated the other bloodwork and the only change (if I believe our machine which is sometimes a little iffy) is a mild anemia. So this could go along with a bleeding ulcer (which makes sense, especially since he has been on Rimadyl long term) or of course (using my traditional worst case scenario thoughts) a bleeding tumor. Anyway, he really isn't acting terribly ill. He's not himself, but not bad. So I decided to add sucralfate into the regimen. I've never been totally convinced of the benefits of this, always considered it a "can't hurt, might help" kind of thing but he did seem to feel better last night. He actually chewed on nylabone, played with a toy, and was making the rounds licking the floors and other kitchen appliances. And today he seemed more interested in eating than he has all week. So I'm still hoping for just an ulcer or other curable GI problem. That would be more likely than something else, but I will of course continue to worry until he's better. That's just me.

And we already got an application on Holli! It looks good but still needs to have a vet check and home visit, so not a sure thing yet.

Also I got projectile pooped on today. We were anesthetizing a rescue kitten for a neuter when he started to vomit. I held him over the trash can to limit clean up and during the abdominal contractions he blew diarrhea out the back end-all over my pants and shoe. What a glamorous life I lead. He never did actually vomit either.

I did the math on Legend's year in AKC. She did get 13 QQ's and 520 points. That's almost double what she got last year. I know we went to more trials but I'm still pretty impressed with her. That total includes all those NQ's from contact issues and some of those not-so-successful outings like the ill-fated summer trip to Tulsa. Lyric has done pretty good too. Really compared to my other dogs she's had a great first 18 months of trialing. When all the points have been recorded I will get to see where she ranked among all Poms this year.

Close

2011-11-27T17:27:00.001-06:00

But not this weekend. After a nail-biting, very ugly, by the skin of our teeth Q in standard Legend was just one nice jumpers course away from MACh. But it was not to be. The course was set up to make a 90 degree turn to the right after the weave poles but there was an off course jump right ahead of the poles. She ended up somehow bobbling the last few poles and coming out on the wrong side. It was so subtle several people couldn't even tell what happened. I'm sure that somehow my anxiety over making sure she finished her poles AND turned away from the off course threw off her rhythm. Probably if I had just relaxed and let her go we would have been fine. I mean how often do we NQ a jumpers course-and a pretty easy one at that!

I'm a little disappointed but only because we were so close and should have had it. And because we are not (despite all the trials that are available) running AKC again until March.

But, in reality, I'll enjoy it a lot more when Zodiac is not sick and when more of our friends can be there. And if we are really lucky it won't be Sunday afternoon when everyone is packing up and we can go party!

Little red dog still had an incredible year. She earned somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 QQ's, 500 MACh points and qualified for 2 nationals. And all that while being diagnosed with epilepsy. It has been five years ago this month that she came from rescue to live with us. In that time she has become the most titled dog I have owned and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Bring on 2012!

Nineteen down

2011-11-25T20:17:00.000-06:00

One to go. Pretty unreal looking back at where we were 8 days ago-a third seizure, new meds, not even knowing if she would compete this weekend. But you would have never known that today! Started out with a great standard run and then a nice jumpers run. I felt like I ran the jumpers course very cautiously and somewhat in a state of panic! Seriously though, whatever happens it will be an exciting rest of the weekend. Oh and today is Legend's "birthday" but we haven't really celebrated yet, actually it was more like she gave me a present.

Lyric ran great in standard (even did the teeter) until the weave poles and then apparently all her concentration was blown. We used all three of our attempts and never made it through. She did Q in jumpers but was not very fast-guess she used up all her energy running around the weave poles in standard.

Meanwhile, Zodiac has been sick. He vomited a few times last night and then early this morning was acting nauseous. I have him some cerenia but a few hours later he vomited again and wouldn't eat anything. He was a little lethargic but otherwise not too sick. But I decided to be on the safe side. I have a friend from school who owns a clinic a few miles from the trial site so I left him there for the day to have some tests run. Bloodwork was all normal and x-rays only showed a mildly distended intestine. We did barium to be on the safe side and although it was slow to pass through one part of the small intestine it did pass. So we presume he just have some gastroenteritis (upset tummy) and started him on metronidazole and more cerenia. He has not vomited but it still lethargic and not eating. Although he did show interest in licking the dessert plates after dinner. Hopefully by morning he will be a lot better-I mean we might have a lot to celebrate tomorrow and we want everyone to enjoy it!

Why buy new?

2011-11-23T19:32:00.000-06:00

MOKAN Border Collie Rescue is pleased to offer these quality "pre-owned" dogs for adoption!

I picked up both of these dogs today from local shelters. Holli is an approximately 8 month old female. She is very sweet and seems playful although she isn't sure what toys are just yet. She was a stray and we don't know much about her but she loves people and seems to like other dogs. She is a little girl-only 25 lbs. She will by my new foster dog so you will be learning more about he soon I'm sure. She is staying with a friend for the weekend while we are out of town. Her pictures don't do her justice, they were taken right after a much needed bath. She reminds me of Josie-a puppy we fostered a few years back.

This amazingly handsome boy is Utah. I'm not a huge fans of tri-colors but I really like this one! He's so pretty and photogenic-I'm a sucker for prick ears! And he's full of energy and playful. He loves to RUN and loves toys. If the way he ate his dinner is any indication he will also be very food motivated. Utah was a stray picked up when he was about 4 months old and adopted out by the shelter. The new owners left him in the backyard 24/7 and returned him when he was digging under the fence. He's been going crazy living at the shelter ever since. He's now about 10 months old and 34 lbs and also a very sweet boy. He is going to a new foster home this weekend (actually Trip's mom offered to foster him-won't those two boys have fun together!).

Training updates

2011-11-21T12:19:00.000-06:00

I'm so proud of myself. I've gone out at least 4 days this week and worked dogs despite the weather being windy, chilly, wet or some combination of the above. I'm also pleased to report that Legend has had no side effects from the medication. She has been as full of herself as usual and sharp as a tack in practice. So, as of right now, I'm planning on letting her run at the trial this weekend.

So what have we been working on? We've been working really hard at sending out ahead of me-over multiple obstacles or just a single jump from increasing distances. Also sending on from a contact or tunnel while I remain stationary (as in "behind the line"). They are both doing well but Lyric is having a little trouble understanding what to do as I fade the manners minder out (no target).

They are also working on discriminations and getting much better, even at a distance and with speed. This is a big deal for Lyric-she patterns train really easy (as in I got the cookie for the tunnel last time!)

I'm also working Legend on "back" meaning to turn away from me. She only sort of knows this and isn't reliable enough yet to do it all the time on those far away chances courses. I will start Lyric on this eventually. I want her to get a little more comfortable with the other skills first. She's also been proofing her teeter, weaves and table.

I've been super pleased with how both of them are running. Should be interesting to see how things go this weekend and then at NADAC in December.

Cancer Part 4: Hemangiosarcoma

2011-11-19T10:55:00.000-06:00

While there are plenty of bad tumors/cancers to have this one is probably the worst and is the last of what I consider the big, bad, three (lymphoma, osteosarcoma, and hemangiosarcoma).

Hemangiosarcoma (HSA) is a malignant tumor of blood vessel cells. This means two things. First-it can arise from almost any organ because most organs, of course, have blood vessels. Second-it is traditionally very quick to metastasize because obviously, it's already near the blood stream-one of the portals for spread of tumor cells.

That said the three most common places for a pet to develop HSA is the spleen (28-50%), the right atrium (a chamber of the heart), and the subcutaneous tissue (under the skin). There is also a dermal (skin) form but it can commonly be cured with surgery alone as only 1/3 of these ever spread internally. Dermal HSA is most common in Whippets, Salukis, Bloodhounds, and English pointers. Breeds predisposed to more traditional forms of HSA include German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers and Portuguese Water dogs.. I don't know if there are statistics on this but in my experience I don't remember ever seeing this in a small breed dog-most seem to be medium to large dogs. HSA accounts for 5-7% of all tumors in dogs.

HSA of subcutaneous tissue has a 60% metastatic rate. Radiographs of the chest, and ultrasound of the heart and abdomen are recommended to check for metastatic disease. Although prognosis is better if none are found, chemo is still recommended due to the aggressive nature. Surgery alone is associated with an average survival rate of 6 months.

Heart-based HSA often goes undetected until it ruptures and bleeds and can cause sudden collapse. At this point the pericardium-the sac surrounding the heart must be drained of the excess fluid. 63% of cardiac HSA have evidence of metastasis at the time of diagnosis. Survival time for surgery alone is approximately 4 months while survival with chemo is only slightly longer.

Splenic is the most classic form of HSA and can present in a number of ways. An enlarged spleen may be an incidental finding on routine exam, the dog may present as feeling sick as the enlarged organ may be pressing on stomach, diaphragm or intestines, the dog may be lethargic and weak because the tumor in slowly bleeding causing an anemia, or the dog may have suddenly collapsed due to an acute rupture and bleed of the tumor. Depending on the situation and the owner's goals or finances additional diagnostics may be performed prior to surgery to help determine if this is a benign mass or a HSA. For the purpose of this post we will assume we talking only about HSA. An estimated 25% of dogs with splenic HSA also have cardiac HSA and most have some form of metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis. Survival times for splenectomy alone (removal of the spleen) is19-86 days with a 1 year survival rate of only 6%. With chemo survival times can increase to 6-9 months.

Clearly this is a terrible disease that warrants a lot of thought about whether or not treatment should be attempted and how aggressive you want to be. There is not a right or wrong answer but instead it should be tailored to what is right for each individual pet and family.

Additional research about cause, early detection and more successful treatment options are going on as we speak. Maybe someday we can take this one of the "bad" list.

Cats
This is not a common disease of cats but certainly can occur. There are four forms-dermal, subcutaneous, visceral (involving internal organs), and oral. Dermal and subcutaneous are the most common and are dermal is usually cured with surgery, whereas subcutaneous may have a 60% recurrence rate after surgery. The visceral form accounts for 30% and is the most aggressive, frequently warranting euthanasia at the time of diagnosis. Chemo protocols are available for cats but there are very little statistics regarding their usefulness. I have only diagnosed HSA once in a cat. It was on the tongue-an incidental finding during a dental cleaning. We removed it and as far as I know the cat never had any additional problems. Radiographs were clear of metastatic disease at that time.

On a lighter note

2011-11-19T10:11:00.000-06:00

It's that time of year again!

Merry

Christmas

Grandma!

For new readers this year, I always print my Grandma a book of my blog every year at Christmas so she can read about everything we have been doing and see all of our pictures since we don't live nearby. And it's about time I get to work on that!

My agility dog has epilepsy

2011-11-17T14:04:00.000-06:00

You wouldn't know if from looking at her now-waiting anxiously by the door to go outside and play and bark at the neighbor's dog. And for that I am thankful. But that wasn't the scene just 4 hours ago when Legend had her third seizure. I was putting down food bowls (like usual) when she ran out of the kitchen into the living room. That is not a normal behavior for her. She knew what was coming and so did I. When I got around the corner to look she was already starting to twitch. Before I could get there she fell and hit her head on the brick fireplace and then knocked the fire screen over on her. I wonder if she has a headache today? But it seemed very short and she had a much shorter post-ictal phase this time. She looked worried for a few minutes but did not spend 20 minutes growling at me and hiding in the bedroom. Actually within a few minutes she was trying to get her food bowl down from the counter where I had left her uneaten breakfast.

Obviously I'm disappointed. This was not what I was hoping for. I was still clinging to the hope that there would be no more, but certainly hadn't planned on another one just 3 weeks from the last one. So we are starting on Phenobarbital today. Some people have asked me if I have considered other drugs but to be honest Phenobarb is cheap (not that that really matters), easily available and reliable. All drugs can have side effects, some are just different. So that's where we are starting. If we don't like the side effects or the results we always have the option to switch to something else.

We have a trial next weekend so I'm not sure if she will get to run or not. I was hoping we wouldn't have to start medication until later but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I know I could probably wait another week to start but with only 3 weeks in between I felt it was better to start her on something now. Time will tell.

I could spend a lot of time moping around doing the whole "why me, why my dog, why now" thing but I guess that doesn't really change anything does it? And Legend clearly isn't spending any time feeling sorry for herself. So if she's ok, I am too. I guess.

This is why

2011-11-16T19:35:00.000-06:00

I sometimes come home with the strong desire to beat my head against a wall.

First appointment of the afternoon-boxer for check ears and itching/licking feet. Background information on this case is that the dog was seen in April for check ears and mild generalized itchiness. At that time we treated the ears, I recommended trying Benadryl and mentioned a food trial in case of food allergy. She was also supposed to come in for a recheck in 2 weeks and didn't. Now the client reports the itching, licking, and head shaking is driving them crazy (never mind how the dog feels) to the point they are considering getting rid of the dog. The conversation went as follows.

Me: So the benadryl didn't work at all?
Client: We didn't try any benadryl
Me: So I see we discussed a food trial at the last visit. Is that something you want to do or have already done?
Client: We tried the food for a few days but she kept eating our other dogs food and we didn't really see much difference.
Me: Well you would need to feed the special food exclusively for 6-8 weeks to notice a difference.
Client: Oh.

So basically what you are saying is you didn't come for the recheck, didn't try any of the recommendations and have let your dog itch to the point of making everyone miserable for 6 months and now you want it "fixed?" And you want to get rid of the dog because "magic" didn't make it better? How hard was it to just try the benadryl?

Appointment number two-young adult dog with urinary tract signs and some lethargy and decreased appetite (but is of course grossly overweight).

Me: So how long has the urinary problem been going on
Client: Probably a couple of months (oh, nice-have you ever had a UTI sir?). We thought she just learned marking from another dog we were visiting. Can they do that?
Me: Well, not very likely. And how long has the decreased appetite been going on?
Client: Well...probably a couple of months as well.
Me: We need to check a urine sample for infection and probably an x-ray for stones. Is that ok?
Client: Can stones cause these symptoms?
Me: Yes

So we do the urinalysis and x-ray and of course find...wait for it...

infection and bladder stones!

So I explain the options to him. Today we will start on antibiotics and then we have two choices for the stones. You can try to dissolve them with diet or just skip to surgery. If they are not the kind that dissolve with diet then we will have wasted two months feeding special food and then still need surgery. I pointed out that since she was obviously already so uncomfortable that surgery was the way I would go if it were my dog.

So I got the antibiotics and the estimate and told him we could schedule him as soon as possible. He declared that in 2 weeks he had to go pick up his son in another state and so would need to wait until January or February? Excuse me? Did you not just tell me your dog had been sick for 2 months? Did I not point out the need for surgery instead of dietary treatment because your dog is so uncomfortable? And now you want to not do either of those things for 2-3 months? I advised him we could get her in next week so it would all be taken care of before he left. No comment. Well, you can call us. Really? What is wrong with people?

Later in the afternoon was a nice elderly woman with a cat to check eyes. All went well but there was a note in the file that a follow-up Feline leukemia/FIV test had been recommended since he had been in a fight several months ago. I asked if she wanted to do that today and she responded with well he never gets into any big fights. Ok, well it only takes a little bite to spread diseases. We did the test.

Lastly was the woman with the cat she thought was not eating as much and having diarrhea. Turns out she really doesn't know how much he eats because she leaves food out for both cats overnight and she just thinks there has been more left lately. And the stool sample she brought us was hard as a rock.

What do you do? Find wall. Bang head.

Never before seen video

2011-11-15T09:15:00.000-06:00

Ok. That's not entirely true. Some of these have been on facebook but I just now figured out how to get iphone video to my blog.

The first three are the young dog trainer in action. Be sure to turn the sound up to get the full effect.

This one is Vixen making her ugly face. She's not really mean but she's got her bluff in on Legend.

Inching closer

2011-11-13T20:58:00.000-06:00

Legend started off the weekend with a bang getting QQ #18 right off the bat on Friday-no contact issues at all! And better times than she's run in a while to boot...MACh 2 points maybe? Our quest for the perfect weekend continued into Saturday where she picked up yet another standard Q! QQ #19 was in the works but she went wide at one tunnel in jumpers and into the weaves instead of turning into the jump-one wrong course away! And it went downhill (relatively speaking anyway) from there. This morning she trotted around the first jump-stress? lack of attention? distraction? I don't really know. After that she was not still not clean but did do all her contacts nicely. So no contact refusals all weekend! Yippee!

Lyric was the queen of jumpers this weekend having three beautiful runs for two thirds and one first place. Good times too. She ran halfway up the teeter every day, turned around and came back down though. Poor girl-she runs up with so much confidence, like she's going to do it, then chickens out and comes down. More teeter work in the next few weeks. She also had one jump refusal and one table refusal this weekend. But she nailed all six sets of weaves! Overall I'm pretty proud of them and I have video this time!

The first two (if YouTube works correctly) should be from Legend's QQ. The next one is Lyric's jumpers from Friday and the last one is Lyric's best standard run of the weekend-only fault is, of course the teeter.

Champs Collages

2011-11-09T19:11:00.000-06:00

One of the reason we bought the whole CD of our dogs at champs was because we wanted collages to commemorate the event. But the ones the photographer was selling were very expensive. So, we figured this way we could have all the pictures and make collages since I had Photoshop at home.

Anyway, here they are...

I think they look pretty good!

Stars of the stage

2011-11-08T09:26:00.000-06:00

When we lived in Columbia, the dog training club we were in held an open house every year. There were drill team performances, obedience demonstrations and obedience "games" such as musical chairs with dogs on stays, tic-tac-toe with dogs, etc. Over the years both Oreo and Zodiac participated in these but for the life of me I can't find any pictures of the year Zodiac was in the show.

Oreo and Bear doing the "double broad jump." Neither of these handsome and talented fellows are with us anymore.

Oreo's curtain call

Showing off stays during musical chairs

This is a little hard to see but it's an agility drill set to music-the dogs wore lighted collars and we decorated the equipment with lights as well.

Of course there is a hand painted set creating a backdrop of a doggie winter wonderland. All of the dogs that have participated in the show are painted on the set and when they cross the Rainbow Bridge a halo is painted over them. While I was in Columbia this weekend I visited the old dog school and since the set was up in preparation for the show I was able to get pictures of the boys' portraits.

Oreo was painted on the teeter since it took him a year to learn to do it on his own!

Zodiac is in the UKC hoop tunnel even though we
never compete in UKC.

Legend's magic number

2011-11-06T17:57:00.000-06:00

Three. Yep, she was able to complete all the contacts yesterday and picked up QQ number 17. Friday she also had a Q in jumpers. In standard the a-frame was the second obstacle netting us a refusal. I abandoned my plan (at least for the day) to re-do the obstacle, leave and reward because there was a really cool layering opportunity I wanted to try if we had NQ'd by that point. Coming off the dogwalk I was able to flip her 180 degrees away from me over a jump and then into the weave poles with the dogwalk/tunnel ensemble between us. She popped out of the poles early but essentially did the the layering! I was happy and several people noticed-this is not commonly attempted in AKC. Today she took a bar down in a clean jumpers run and had a teeter refusal (obstacle number 3). Into my "get her over the stress of contact obstacles" regimen we are adding doing a low a-frame or teeter anytime she wants the ball thrown for her outside. No free fetching for awhile.

And my new cookie strategy for Lyric worked great. She got no cookies before running and was heavily rewarded as close to the ring as possible. Which makes sense really-she's a pretty simple dog to figure out, unlike her sister! Anyway, it worked great and she ran much faster this weekend than she has been. She picked up two jumpers Q's and 3 of her 4 NQ's were strictly due to not finishing the weave poles. She did bail off the teeter today as well. But I'm happy with her weekend and think she's on the right track again. And she is doing lovely rear crosses in both directions and into tunnels!

Now it's four days to get ready for the next trial!

Fall Photos

2011-10-31T08:02:00.001-05:00

My handsome boy

Lyric blended into the leaves a little

So we also tried her in black and white

Is this not the most photogenic dog ever?

And again with different effects

Lefty

Fun with photoshop

Everybody all together-pretty good but Lyric looks a little squinty

I guess this is what Zodiac thought of all this nonsense

Things that make you go hmmmm

2011-10-30T16:40:00.000-05:00

So....the trial did not go that well. Friday Legend refused the teeter, yesterday the dog-walk, and today the a-frame. Except for teeter they other two refusals were early in the course when she is stressed and low on momentum. We've overcome a lot of that stress but she's never been a dog to be relaxed and come blasting off the start time, not often anyway (sometimes she surprises me). We have analyzed this to death and it really seems to be just a stress behavior-she drops her head and starts sniffing and everything. I don't believe she is injured which is what everyone keeps asking, it just does not have that kind of presentation. Plus, I can't find anything wrong with her.

So, I needed a plan. Today I decided if she didn't do a contact I would re-approach like usual and when she did it, celebrate, leave the ring and celebrate some more. So that's what we did. I think I will keep doing that at AKC trials for now. When we get to the NADAC trial we will to the fun run if offered and I will take some of my runs as training runs. I want to just to one obstacle, contact and leave the ring or some variation of that. I have no idea if that will help but I don't have anything to lose. Ignoring it isn't working. I don't think that doing more contacts at home will work either-it's not that she's afraid, she's just....well...Legend.

Her jumpers runs were great, not super fast but ok for her and for the pretty tight course times we were given this weekend. She only NQ'd on the run where I pulled her off a jump.

Lyric struggled with weave poles and general speed this weekend. I think I need to go back to rewarding closer to the ring instead of at the crate. Now she just associates going to the crating area with cookies and not so much the end of the run. She did pick up one jumpers Q on Friday. It wasn't all weave poles either, she also refused the table one day and crashed a jump.

I was a little demotivated after the weekend, especially following our struggles at champs. Legend had such a spectacular first half of the year and has slowly deteriorated some over the last few months. But we've worked through a lot of problems and we will just work on this one now. I don't know about getting that MACH this year but that's ok. I want to get it when we are both running happy.

In the meantime we will continue distance training. We are having a really fun time working on some new skills (or really proofing and strengthening some skills we have started). It's really fun to actually be working on something new. I don't really feel like AKC courses challenge us that much anymore (maybe sometimes Lyric, but not so much me and Legend). Don't get my wrong-we are far from having a perfect Q rate even if she did do all the obstacles. I just mean I don't feel like there is much we can't do or need to work on. I don't leave and think "oh, we should work more on that." Other than the stress related issues there isn't anything she consistently does wrong. It will be something different all the time. But in NADAC there are chances courses that we literally can't do. We need to train some new skills. And I'm hoping that learning new skills and being able to work more independently will help continue to build her confidence so that she's not as stressed at either venue. I really don't want to be one of those people that everyone watches and says why does she keep running that dog!

Anyway, wish us luck. I'm going to edit some new fall photos to post later. I feel like I have not taken any photos of my dogs in months!

Champs Photos!

2011-10-26T20:45:00.001-05:00

All courtesy of Great Dane Photography

Showing off her nails

You can see both our nails here!

This one is Cheri's favorite

Seriously, it's just a hoop!

I love this dog!

And just like that

2011-10-23T20:13:00.000-05:00

I was having a great weekend. Friday night I went to a concert with some friends-it was good and we had fun even though I got home late. Saturday morning Jerry and I got up early and drove to Columbia for the Mizzou game. We lost but it was a beautiful day and a decent game. Then we came home and watched the world series game on TV. Go Cards!

This morning I took Legend to the local AKC obedience trial for another shot at Open A. I entered this trial at the last minute and spend zero time getting ready so I didn't really have any expectations. But she did the best she has so far I think. Her heeling pattern was a little weak and sloppy but her figure eights were nice. The retrieves and broad jump were nearly flawless and her stays rock solid. The only thing she failed was the drop on recall. She didn't come when called either time but did drop right away. So I was pretty encouraged. Her attitude is so good on the jumping and retrieving, you can tell she's not stressed at all. So I need to keep working on making the heeling and recall more fun I guess.

Then Cheri and her girls joined us at the house for some agility work and I was pretty pleased with progress we are making on distance stuff. If we keep at it we may have a bunch of NATCH dogs on our hands!

Then Cheri and I headed out on a short run in the nice afternoon weather.

It was a perfect weekend winding down. And just like that it was over. Legend had another seizure tonight. It was just like last time. They were starting to eat and then I saw her start to act funny and then it happened. It was short again and afterwards we went through the same series of events. Right away she seems ok, then she's afraid of us, then she's really submissive and needy and within an hour it's like nothing happened. Except it's not like nothing happened for me. I'm left to obsess and worry and wonder.

She's on the outside range of when we consider epilepsy to be the primary cause of seizures. But with lack of other symptoms, the 8 week interval in between and the normal labwork I have no reason to believe it's anything else. I could have an MRI done, I just don't think that's really justified yet. Not to mention the expense for us and the stress to her. And dogs that start having epileptic seizures later in life are supposed to be easier to control anyway so that's good. I guess. Right now I think that if she has any more in the next few months I will go ahead and start her on Phenobarbital. It's probably not wrong to start her now but I sort of want to deny it for a little longer. Of course we don't know for sure these are the only two she has had but we have not seen evidence of any others. She's kind of covered in slobber and pee right now, as was the floor. So I'm hoping we'd be able to tell if there had been any more. It's so so odd how both happened right when she started eating. The other odd thing-she absolutely recognizes the other dogs before us. She's totally ok with them being around her, but acts like she will bite our arm off if we go near her.

Could be worse I guess. Tomorrow is another day.

NADAC Champs 2011: the good, the bad, and the pink

2011-10-17T18:50:00.001-05:00

I know, it should really be the good, the bad, and the purple, but you will see why pink later.

The good
We had lots of fun. The drive was not as long as we expected and we never got lost! The weather was more or less lovely, rain the first day but after that pretty nice. The crate space was plentiful and the arena nice with lots of seating.

I think my favorite part was watching the Superstakes classes run. Those dogs were amazing. They were basically handling entire courses from behind a line that kept them from going no further out than about the second obstacle. Anyone who thinks that AKC fast classes are hard should come watch these dogs! It really inspired me to want to work on more distance skills with my dogs which I need to do but I don't know that I need to take it to that level. I like getting out on the course and running more with my dog, not just directing them.

The photographers were great and I ordered the full CD of my dog since there were so many good pictures. I can't wait to get it in the mail and post some.

Also in the good department our buddies Cheri and Vixen kicked butt in the double digits division. They placed in every round and were just 5 points out of making the finals, finishing fourth overall in that division.

And Legend. Well, we had good parts in every run and most of her runs she had decent speed (for her) and enthusiasm. And she handled almost all of the distance challenges well. And she is doing better all the time at not ignoring hoops and just running past them (we hate hoops).

The bad
Legend and I failed to get even one clean run. Not one. Not in 7 rounds. Seriously, we never have that kind of NQ rate! But I came here with no expectations-just wanted to enjoy it. And realistically she needed to run clean and hope other dogs made mistakes to even place so we weren't really out anything but pride! I'm not sure 7 clean rounds (which would have been unreal) would have even gotten us into the finals. The other dogs are just faster. And that's ok-we went to have fun and we did. I was just a little disappointed that we didn't at least do as well as an average trial. And hey-she had the best looking nails there!

Other thoughts and ramblings
We were told the courses would be long-like 28 obstacles or more. And as promised the first course was 40 obstacles. That was tough! I consider myself in pretty good shape but I was whipped at the end of that run! It was a fun challenge though and I was a little sorry that the other courses weren't longer. However given the length of time it was taking I am glad they shortened the courses. The first day the 20 inch class was last. I walked around 9 AM and didn't run until 3:30. I was running round 2 at 9:30 at night! And they had superstakes after that-we didn't stay that night. So, obviously shortening the courses was in order, especially when they added in team, as we still had some long days.

The vendors could have been better but the raffle was great-even though I didn't win any of the big prizes.

And there were lots of pretty ribbons and trophies to be won!

Maybe next time we will take home more than just pictures of them! "Next time" is to be determined still. Champs are supposed to be out west next year but the Border Collie specialty is in Wisconsin. Since only Legend would run in the specialty we are considering going to champs instead if it is less than a 15 hour drive. If not, I may not go to either one. After all we are going to Reno and planning a "family" vacation (as in not dog-related) as well.

and finally...

The Pink
I won Lyric this adorable pink crate in the rescue raffle. How cute will she be in that! Funny what makes us happy huh?

Oh yes I did

2011-10-11T21:57:00.000-05:00

We (ok, Cheri) painted Legend (and Vixen's) nails purple tonight. Now they are officially ready for NADAC championships. Legend thought this was not only the highest form of torture but also very humiliating. I, however, find it adorable!

Time flies

2011-10-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

We had a busy weekend! First of all Barney is doing great-he moves back outside tomorrow. I think his buddy has been missing him.

My knee has been feeling better (I think I mentioned it was bothering me) but we had a 5K planned for Saturday and I was hoping to at least jog it. Luckily though my knee felt good and I was able to put forth a decent race. It was a minute slower than the previous race but since I had not run in 2 weeks and took the first mile pretty easy I was pleased. Now on to train for some 10k runs next year.

I've got most of my stuff packed and ready for NADAC nationals-leaving Wednesday after work but lots to do between now and then!

And most importantly today is Lyric's birthday! Can't believe my little powderpuff is 5 years old, but mostly that's because we've only been lucky enough to have her 2 years. I hope we have her a lot more! They dogs all enjoyed sharing a doggie cupcake in celebration.

Burning through lives

2011-10-06T20:11:00.000-05:00

Barney had another medical emergency this week. When I went out to feed Tuesday morning he didn't eat. That is not like Barney. I checked him over and didn't see any obvious wounds or injuries. Then I checked his bladder-it was not too big but was firm and he cried loudly when I felt it. Obstructed. Great. Barney basically had the same problem Icy had last summer except we didn't know because he's outside and we don't see what his bathroom habits are. And, he's a boy cat so the crystals can form a plug and get lodged in the urethra making them unable to pee. This is what had happened.

So he got to go into the clinic and get anesthetized so I could pass a catheter to relieve the obstruction. Then he got some fluids, antibiotics and pain meds. He is spending a few days in the house so we can make sure he continues to be able to pee. Fortunately we caught this early and he was able to be treated with no complications so far. The longer the problem goes on, the more severe the consequences. Now we need to figure out the best plan to keep him from having another problem. Icy is doing well with simply eating a quality canned food (not even prescription) but I don't really want to feed my barn cats canned food if I don't have to.

Lyric's weekend

2011-10-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

Lyric's weekend was somewhat overshadowed by her sister qualifying for nationals but she also has some brags to share.

Lyric went 3/6 and picked up her 2nd QQ. She almost went 3/3 in jumpers with just an off course in a very tricky part in Sunday's run. She runs very hot and cold in standard. Friday and Sunday were relative train wrecks with a lot of letters on her scribe sheet but Saturday was awesome. I think I need to work some longer sequences and courses with her in practice to keep her speed, focus and enthusiasm up. Or maybe she's just a cute toy dog that runs when she feels like it. I think some of it is still stress over knowing the teeter or other obstacles she might not want to do are out there, because her jumpers runs are always so much better.

From a shelter in Iowa

2011-10-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

We did it! Legend got the last of the points needed to qualify for AKC nationals this year. This is my first time attending this event. I'm so proud of my girl. I never really considered that she might qualify for national events in two venues in one year, but...here we go! In two weeks to NADAC championships in Illinois and in the spring to AKC nationals in Reno. For that one we are taking extra time off and making it a sight-seeing cross-country adventure. If she finishes her MACH this year it's just icing on the cake!

And to think, all this from a little dog left at a shelter when she was just 5 months old. Her whole life, if she was even going to get the chance to have one, hung in the balance until rescue came along to get her. Adopting Legend didn't just save her life, it also changed mine. So if you're wondering where to get your next dog, why not make a life-altering choice? Adopt.

Bad calls

2011-09-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

I got two bad calls by the judge at the trial today. The bad call Lyric got was one of those "gifts" where you should have gotten a fault but didn't. We were having a good run but just had one communication error and she pretty much came to a complete stop almost on top of a jump before we got going again. I have no idea why we didn't get called for a refusal but we didn't. Some may make the argument that she hadn't seen the obstacle yet but she was in the last third of the approach so I'm not sure what the rule is on that. So as far as I'm concerned, we got a "free" Q. There are a lot of people, including me, who feel kind of guilty about taking those but the logic is that someday you will get a "bad" bad call to make up for it.

Fast forward to Legend's standard run. We had a QQ and the last of our points to qualify for nationals on the line. I thought we were clean but a friend informed me we got called on our dogwalk contact. I know she was in the yellow-she was practically walking down the ramp and I was watching everything closely as I knew what we had on the line. Stupid karma. Let me tell you that "free Q guilt" fades really fast when your "rapidly approaching a MACH dog" gets cheated out of QQ! I didn't ask the judge about it. It's not on tape and it all comes out even in the end (or in this case by the end of the day). And the judge may be just as sure that she was not in the contact.

It is essentially inevitable that Legend will get her two nationals points and her 4 QQs but still...ok, end of ranting. Tomorrow is another day. The bottom line is that she ran great today. We had a smooth as silk jumpers run on a course with very few Qs-quite proud of that. Hopefully tomorrow she will run just as well and the a-frame and teeter boogiemen will stay far away this weekend.

Lyric, while still struggling to be consistent in standard is getting into the groove of 24 inch weave poles. She actually seems to be more comfortable in them that the 20 inch (or 22 or whatever) we have at home. And I did a few nice rear crosses with her today so definitely some good parts.

That's a good question

2011-09-28T20:39:00.000-05:00

At work today a tech was asking if I missed not working on large animals. And no, I don't. I hate cows, pigs are terrible patients, horses (although I like them) can be dangerous and get sick at odd hours of the night. Small ruminants are ok but there is not much market for that. And then I got to thinking, I don't necessarily love small animal practice. There are a lot of frustrations with this job. The quality of medicine you practice will always be dictated by how much money the owners are willing and able to spend. If you are an associate the quality of care is also dictated by the facility, equipment and support staff your employer provides. If you own a clinic then there is a whole new set of issues to deal with. And quite frequently working with the public is enough to make you want to bash your head against a wall. And just think-I paid a significant amount of tuition money for this "honor." I pay the equivalent of a nice car payment on my student loan every month, and will continue to do so for the next 4-5 years. And I owed less than average.

If I was to choose a different path in vet med I would specialize in clinical pathology. It would have been ideal to have pursued a residency right after vet school but the thought of 4-5 more years of "school" made me ill and I really thought I wanted to go into private practice. There is actually nothing stopping me from pursuing this now but it would involve giving up my life, moving, taking a temporary pay cut, and then moving again to find a job. Not interested.

I've recently been made aware that pharmacists make good money and work better hours than most vets. While pharmacology is a challenging subject it is interesting and not one I would necessarily count out as a career choice.

I always said I would never go to medical school because people are "icky," but while watching my favorite crime-drama, it occurred to me that being a medical examiner would be pretty cool. Granted I would actually have to complete med school and a residency but once in the real world I couldn't accidentally kill anyone and I could help solve mysteries. Sounds pretty win-win don't you think?

If I were to go outside the medical field altogether I would pursue a career in graphic art. I love photography, drawing, painting, photoshop, being creative and designing handouts, brochures, websites, etc. Working at a desk surely has advantages to to working with people, aggressive dogs and fractious casts.

But don't get me wrong, private practice veterinary medicine is not a bad career choice, I don't hate it, and I'm not quitting. I'm just not convinced it's my "dream job." Maybe someday I will find or create the perfect practice. Either way, there are number of significant benefits to being a vet and a lot of days I do enjoy it. It is a well-respected career, kids think it's cool, friends and family members think it's convenient. I get to see more puppies and kittens in my day than the average person. Despite what it seems like there are a significant number of people who take care of their pets, follow your recommendations and thank you for your help. Some days you get to save a life. The financial benefits to being able to care for my own pets are huge. But more than that, actually being my own pets doctor might be the biggest benefit to me. I have the advantage of a knowledge base that allows me to make sure they are getting the best care. I can make sure I choose what I want for them in both wellness and preventive care as well as illness and injury. I'm better prepared to make important and emotional decisions for them. I don't have to trust that my vet is always giving me all my options, offering appropriate referrals, practicing the most up to date medicine, following modern surgical protocol and taking adequate care of my hospitalized pet.

So, the big question I get asked is would I do it all over again? I guess the good news is that as long as time travel is not a reality I don't have to make that decision. The bad news is that I would, in fact, have to make a decision. (That's just a fancy way of saying I don't really know and I don't want to think about it :)

Before she goes...

2011-09-27T20:52:00.001-05:00

Here are some pics of Eva. They are all from my phone so not stellar but it's all I have for now.

She is really a sweetie and we will miss her. And if you feel like you missed out, don't worry, I have another cat available for adoption!

So my knees haven't really bothered me at all since I started running more seriously. Today though it just randomly started bothering me this afternoon. So I packed for the trial instead of going for a run. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be much better. And the weather should be nice this weekend but packing for "nice" aka "in-between" weather is kind of a pain-I ended up with an extra bag because I didn't know what to bring. Don't want to be unprepared.

And just randomly here is an albino fawn that was hanging out near the clinic. It appeared to have a broken leg but was getting along pretty well. The conservation department wasn't interested.

This week

2011-09-25T22:27:00.001-05:00

I finally managed to work the dogs some this week. Legend's discriminations were abysmal the first day but then she seemed to remember and they were much better the next. Lyric only worked discriminations one day-she worked pretty hard on her teeter and dogwalk the other day. But she struggled a lot the day we did do discriminations. Always something to work on.

Cheri and I ran a 5k on Saturday. It went a lot better than our last race. I took almost 3 minutes off my last race time and beat my goal time. Still a far cry from what I would consider "good" but it's amazing what some training can do huh? We are running another race in 2 weeks and then I probably won't race again until spring. I don't like racing in the cold-hurts my lungs. But I do plan on continuing the training as we plan to run a 10k next year.

Other than than had a pretty relaxing weekend, even rode Squirt for a few minutes. Now just 4 days of work and off to a 3-day trial plus taking Eva to her new home!

Cancer Part 3: Osteosarcoma

2011-09-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

Another bad one.

Osteosarcoma (OSA) is bone cancer. It affects an estimated 8,000-10,000 dogs in the US each year and is more common in dogs than in any other species including humans. OSA is most common in large to giant breed dogs and the most common location is the distal radius (forearm). 75-80% of OSA lesions are in the long bones of the limbs versus the other bones of the body except in small breed dogs where they occur in equal frequencies on the limbs vs other regions. OSA of the mandible or distal to the carpus (wrist) or tarsus (ankle) may carry a slightly better prognosis.

The typical presentation is a large breed middle aged to older dog (although it can occur in younger dogs) with a sudden onset of lameness and/or a swelling in the limb that is not associated with a joint. Presumptive diagnosis is frequently possible with radiographs alone. Biopsy can used to confirm the diagnosis but is often only performed it it will change the treatment plan as it increases the risk of a secondary fracture.

OSA is not curable. An estimated 90% of dogs have metastatic disease (often microscopic) at the time of diagnosis. The goals of treatment are pain management and control or slowing of metastatic disease. Amputation alone is palliative (pain control) and results in a survival time of 4-5 months with a 1-year survival rate of 10%. I don't have any data on survival with pain meds alone but it is likely similar to amputation or shorter as the drugs may be maxed out and still not controlling the pain or they may fracture the leg. Considerations for amputation include does the dog have metastatic disease in other bones or does he have additional orthopedic problems-arthritis, cruciate tears, dysplasia that would make losing a leg difficult for him or her.

Amputation plus chemo (various protocols) remains the gold standard of treatment. Average survival times with the various protocols vary between 250-500 days with one year survival rates only reaching 50% at best.

Limb sparing surgeries are available for dogs who are not candidates for amputation and have similar success rates when combined with chemotherapy. Radiation can also be used to provide pain control on dogs who are not pursuing amputation. There has been a 70% response rate in these dogs and it generally lasts for 2-3 months. Typically dogs get 3-4 treatments, not the more aggressive 3-4 week course discussed before.

Additional chemo, radiation, and nuclear medicine therapies/protocols as well as other novel treatments are being investigated to try and give us better options for this devastating disease.

Cats
OSA is rare in cats but carries a much better prognosis as it rarely metastasizes. Many cases are cures by amputation/surgery alone.

Run Free...actually, please don't

2011-09-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

I fail to understand why people let their dogs run loose. We are the only people in our "neighborhood" with a fence and it's getting really old. I simply don't understand the point of having a dog you allow to run loose 24/7. If you don't care that at any given time your dog could be hit by a car, stolen, kicked by livestock or attacked by other dogs then how much can you really care about the dog? It's probably littered with parasites and get no vet care either. All the more reasons why I don't want it IN MY YARD!

Seriously why do people think it's ok to let their dog wander on someone else's property, harass that person's pets or livestock, pee on their plants and poop in the yard. I mean the owners don't come in our yard and hang out, they don't let their kids in our yard, why let the dogs and all the associated feces in our yard?

A few weeks ago a neighbor stopped by while I was mowing to ask if the long haired black and white dog running loose in the neighborhood was ours or did I know who it belonged too. I have never seen this dog but I have seen her large black lab in our yard on a regular basis. I pointed out that any dog belonging to us would be INSIDE THE FENCE. She sheepishly admitted that although they try to keep their dog home they are not very successful. I guess by try they mean they holler "stay" as they pull out of the driveway because they clearly don't have a fence and the dog is outside all the time.

I wonder how all the irresponsible owners would feel if I start flinging poop back into their yards? Ok, end of rant.

But speaking of running I have kept up with my goal of running more and training harder for the next 5k. I'm excited to see how much I can improve my time this weekend and then again in October. That will probably be all the races until spring-I don't like to run outside in the cold. But next year sometime we plan to try a 10k!

Also about running, Eva is getting pretty quick on 3 legs. Before long she will be as fast as the average cat!

Cancer Part 2: Lymphoma

2011-09-17T17:11:00.000-05:00

In the previous post we discussed lymph nodes as common places for cancer to metastasize to, but there can also be primary cancer of the lymphatic system. This is known as Lymphoma or may sometimes be called Lymphosarcoma. Dogs with Lymphoma (LSA) commonly present with the complaint of lumps, swellings or masses around the head and neck. These are the submandibular and prescapular lymph nodes that the owners are feeling as they pet or groom their dog. The diagram below shows the locations of the external lymph nodes you can feel in a dog.

Typically, once the veterinarian examines the dog they will find that most or all of the above nodes are enlarged. There can be two reasons for this 1) systemic illness or infection (remember the lymph nodes clean or drain infection away from the cells) or 2) cancer of the lymph nodes=lymphoma.

Diagnosis can usually be made by cytology/fine needle aspirate but sometimes a surgical biopsy is needed. Note than most dogs are feeling fine at the time of diagnosis.

This is what a cytology of lymphoma looks like

I tried to find a normal lymph node for comparison but that was harder than anticipated.

Enlargement of the lymph nodes is the most common form of LSA accounting for greater than 80% of cases. Cutaneous (skin), splenic, intestinal and other extra-nodal forms make up the rest. Lymphoma is one of the most common canine cancers and occurs in an estimated 24/100,00 dogs annually.

While LSA typically affects middle aged to older dogs, this disease does not discriminate against age. I have diagnosed dogs as young as 2-3 years old. That's really not something you want to do-people do not expect their tail-wagging two-year old dog to be diagnosed with a terminal illness. Breeds with increased incidence include Boxers, Bassets, St. Bernards, Airedales, and Bulldogs.

LSA is a rapidly progressive disease. Without treatment survival times are approximately 1 month. Treatment options include prednisone, single agent chemotherapy or multi-drug chemotherapy. Prednisone alone can extend survival to 2-3 months. This is a very inexpensive option for owners who don't want or are unable to pursue traditional chemotherapy. Multi drug protocols are the most successful with 60-80% of dogs obtaining remission. There are a variety of protocols available, many of which involve weekly or twice monthly treatments sometimes with oral medications given daily. These protocols can involve a significant time and financial commitment on the part of the owner but can achieve survival times of up to 12 months.

Cats
Incidence of feline lymphoma is estimated to be 200/100,000 annually. Feline lymphoma is not typically limited to the nodes but can include internal organs, intestines, blood and bone marrow. A significant amount of cats with lymphoma are Feline Leukemia positive. Radiation therapy is appropriate for certain forms of lymphoma with multi drug chemo protocols being used for the rest. Remission rates are approximately 60% with an average 40 week survival time.

Cancer Part 1: The basics

2011-09-14T21:06:00.001-05:00

I know. No one wants to hear about cancer. But this topic, along with all the diagnostics and treatments can be very overwhelming, especially when you are faced with an emotional decision of what to do when your pet is diagnosed with something undesirable. So with the idea that knowledge is power I plan to do a series of posts of cancer to hopefully clear up a lot of confusion and questions people may have. Although hopefully no one ever needs to use most of this information!

What is cancer?
Cancer, or neoplasia, is any growth (collection of cells) that have mutated in such a way that they multiply out of control. These growths can be benign or malignant. Benign masses are those that don't spread (metastasize), recur after removal, and generally don't invade or destroy surrounding tissues. Malignant neoplasms are the bad ones-these can spread to other organs, grow rapidly and destroy normal tissues.

So what causes cancer? This is the hardest to answer and at the same time the easiest! Mutations cause cancer. Something in cell division goes wrong and the genes that control further division are no longer working. There are many checks and balances in cell division that repair damaged DNA so that a single mutation is no big deal. It usually requires about 3 mutations before things go haywire. But what causes the mutations? That's the hard one. It's likely a combination of genetics, environment, age, and luck. But no one really knows for sure.

Diagnosing Cancer

Diagnosis of cancer can vary widely. One of the easiest tests is a Fine Needle Aspirate or Needle Biopsy. This is a quick test that can be performed with little discomfort to the pet. Essentially some cells from the mass are sucked into a syringe and sprayed on a slide which is then stained and evaluated. Sometimes a definitive diagnosis can be reached with just this test. Sometimes only enough information is gained to decide more testing needs to be done or cancer can be ruled out completely. Some doctors will look at the slide themselves and some will send to a pathologist. I will usually look at it and if I'm not sure what it is or I need a second opinion I will send it out.

Surgical biopsies are probably the most common route of making a diagnosis. Depending on the size and location the biopsy might be incisional (taking only a piece) or excisional (taking the whole mass). If a benign mass is removed in it's entirety an excisional biopsy may be curative as well. Biopsies differ from cytologies (needle aspirates) because the pathologist can look at the tissue structure, evaluate the margins (to see if it was all removed) and grade the tumor on how aggressive it is. These must be sent to a pathologist where this tissue is sliced into thin pieces, stained and evaluated under the microscope.

For internal tumors other diagnostic procedures are used. Radiographs or x-rays are usually the first screening test for suspected internal masses. Radiology is limited in that it is two-dimensional and only shows shades of gray and shapes or outlines of organs and masses. Ultrasound can help determine more about a mass such as where is comes from and what the structure is like (solid, cystic, etc). Ultrasound can also be used to for guided needle biopsies of internal masses (so you know where you are sticking!).

Sometimes exploratory surgery is warranted to get a diagnosis or remove the tumor so it can be sent for biopsy.

For some masses more advanced imaging such at CT or MRI are needed. These can help determine the extent of the tumor and evaluate tumors in places that are not easily accessible such at the brain, nasal passages or spinal cord. This information is often used in determining what treatment options are available and in planning radiation therapy.

Treating Cancer
Treatment options are widely varied but the three most common are surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy or a combination of these. As mentioned before the goal of surgery can be two-fold: get a diagnosis and cure if possible. When removing a mass we try to get "clean" margins. This means getting all the tumor cells so we try to plan our incision in such a way as to get some extra normal tissue when we remove the mass. We are lucky in that dogs and cats have a lot of extra skin so this is quite frequently possible. Sometimes though when the mass is in more difficult areas such as the tail or legs we are not able to get the entire mass. Amputation or adjunctive chemo or radiation may be needed in some of these cases. Removal of internal masses varies depending on what organ the mass originates from.

Chemotherapy is commonly used in several types of neoplasia. People frequently ask if chemo in dogs is like chemo in people. And the answer is yes, and no. In dogs we tend to not be as aggressive with chemo as we are in people. Part of the reason for this is that dogs don't have a lifespan of 80 years. So if we can give a geriatric dog 12-18 months of quality life that's considered a good success, by then the dog may have reached the end of his life anyway. In a person we are often trying to get 10-30 years or more of quality life so treatments are more aggressive. Most of the time chemotherapy in veterinary medicine is not going to get you a cure, just time.

But, that being said the biology of chemo is the same in animals and humans. Chemo targets rapidly dividing cells (ie cancer cells). Other rapidly dividing cells include bone marrow, the GI tract and hair follicles so these systems are subject to side effects. Red and white blood cells and platelets are all made in the bone marrow-this is why a complete blood count (CBC) is monitored during chemotherapy. If the blood counts get too low it makes it easy for the patient to become ill, and hard for them to fight infection if they become ill. The destruction of the GI lining is why chemo patients have nausea and vomiting but we have excellent drugs to overcome these issues. Now, about the hair. Generally speaking dogs don't lose hair (not all their hair anyway) on chemo. Remember, only about 1/3 of the hairs are growing at any time-the rest are already falling out or dormant. So, mostly you won't notice any abnormal hair loss during chemo. The exception is continuously growing breeds such as poodles, these dogs might lose a lot of hair.

Cost of chemo can vary widely-some are very cheap, some are very expensive. And many protocols require multiple drugs. Some clinics don't perform chemo treatments and the time and expense of traveling to the referral facility must be factored in. In addition to the cost of the drugs there is also the cost of the required monitoring bloodwork which will vary with the protocol and drugs used. And although most drugs are administered via injections, some are given orally at home.

Radiation therapy is frequently used when complete excision is not obtained or where surgery is not an option and/or the type of tumor is not chemo responsive. A benefit to radiation is that the beam is targeted at the affected area and there are not systemic effects as there are with chemo. However any structure near the beam can be damaged. For example if the radiation site is near the eye the tear ducts or lacrimal gland can be damaged. Radiation in the oral cavity can cause ulcers or tongue sores. Hair will frequently not regrow in areas of radiation.

Traditional radiation therapy involves treatment up to 5 days a week for about 4 weeks. Radiation must be done at a special facility and is expensive. If you don't live near the facility it can mean leaving your pet for days or weeks at a time for treatment. Also, because pets don't sit still radiation require anesthesia for every treatment. Not all pets are candidates for this. So, while this can be a very useful and often painless treatment option there are several limiting factors.

Other treatment options or variations of these treatment options exist but are outside the scope of this post and are best discussed with an oncologist. The best treatment for your pet is the one that meets your goals while taking into consideration your pet's comfort level and condition as well as your financial situation and lifestyle.

Staging
Staging of the cancer is one of the important steps in determining both prognosis and treatment options. Staging means determining how much, if at all, the disease has spread. Although cancer cells can in theory spread (metastasize) to anywhere, the two most common places are the local lymph nodes and the lungs. Lymph is a fluid that bathes most tissues of the body and essentially acts as a "cleaner" draining infections, dead cells and other "trash" from the body. Cancer cells travel through the lymph vessels and then set up shop in the closest lymph node to the mass. There are nodes on the outside of the body that you can feel if they become enlarged and these can be checked via needle aspirate or biopsy for tumor cells. Internal lymph nodes are harder to check. If they are grossly enlarged they might show up on radiographs or if surgery is being performed they can be checked at that time. Cancer spreads to the lungs because all blood circulates through them so any tumor cells traveling in the blood stream will eventually end up there and can get stuck in the tiny capillaries and start proliferating. Therefore, thoracic radiographs are another tool used in staging. Abdominal films are also sometimes done depending on the type of tumor, location, and expected behavior. One additional note on checking for metastatic disease-while radiographs clear of metastatic disease is obviously good, it is not a guarantee that there is no spread of disease. A metastatic lesion must reach a certain size (a certain number of cells) before it shows up on the x-ray. The same is true of a lymph node-it can easily have some irregular cells in it without being enlarged. This is why chemo may be frequently recommended in cases even where the met check is clean.

So that was pretty long but I think it gives a start in the understanding of cancer. Next we will discuss individual diseases.

Just for fun

2011-09-13T13:48:00.000-05:00

I ended up with the afternoon off since work was slow. So I have been looking through old pics on my computer. I thought I'd share some just for fun. Most of my really old photos are not digital and I didn't feel like doing any scanning but here's what I came up with.

A long lost photo of Oreo

Zodiac when he was younger and not so gray!

Legend the year we got her

Posing for her ILP pics

Graduation day-the mules were our vet school mascots

Squirt over the years

Jelly-much younger

My four boys

Still Four

2011-09-11T18:08:00.000-05:00

We spent two days at the Agility Ability trial in Lawrence this weekend. And other than being a nice social outing, it was not a big success. The girls did each pick up jumpers Qs on Friday but we totally struck out on Saturday. Although admittedly I NQ'd both dogs in jumpers by being unable to remember the course correctly. After we finished I was really glad I was going home because the last thing I wanted to do was run another day after all that. So we still need 4 QQ's. And I was hoping to at least finish up the last few points we needed to qualify for AKC nationals but at least I knocked it into the single digits. We'll get there.

And although I'd be by happy to finish our MACH anytime, anywhere I kind of wanted to do it at Columbia because they give out black and gold, Mizzou themed bars-how cool would that be for an alumni? So I had it worked out that we needed one double every trial between now and then to have 19 going into that weekend. Now I'm one behind so we need two doubles at one of the next 3 trials including Columbia. So, we shall see...

We have a few weeks to train before our next trial and I'm glad for the little mini break and after two trials so close together-we only had 3 days off between the last two since I did Monday and then started again on Friday.

And I have not updated on Eva in awhile. She's doing great on her three legs. She's out of her splint now (by her own doing) and getting around better all the time. We still keep her pretty confined as the fracture is stable but not fully healed. Soon she will get spayed and sent off to what sounds like a great new home. They are reportedly very excited about her and I'm sure she will be very happy and spoiled.

Sweet Sixteen

2011-09-05T20:40:00.000-05:00

I would say that Legend again made me wait until the last day of the trial to get a QQ but since I single handedly blew a QQ on Saturday I guess that's not really the case!

We had a great weekend at the Triune agility trial this weekend in Blue Springs. The weather was warm on Saturday and then we had some rain but yesterday and today were perfect-windows open at the trial site and everything.

Plus, the girls ran great. They nailed weave poles every run, attacked the teeter in all their standard runs, did the table nicely and Legend did all her A-frames. Plus they had a great attitude and good times all three days.

Lyric was a little wild first thing Saturday and did a few extra laps around the ring but was super fast! The Saturday jumpers course was tough and she gave it a good try but had a few bobbles. Sunday though, she got her first QQ! Today she was a bit distracted by something to sniff in the ring in standard but did get another Q in jumpers on another challenging course.

Saturday Legend had a beautiful run in standard. But....I forgot to turn soon enough to the weave poles and when I did turn at the last minute I plowed in to her pretty hard. I guess the judge felt I was aiding the dog by knocking her back onto the course and we NQ'd. But she still made the weave pole entrance despite the horrible angle I gave her and nearly getting knocked down! She went on to Q in the tough Jumpers course so I was super bummed about that one. Yesterday she also Q'd in jumpers but had two off courses in standard. Today we picked up not only a QQ #16 but a third place in standard-we don't place much in the 20 inch excellent B class!

This picture is after I ran into her-I was laughing about the collision and also happy that she still got the entrance.

These photos were scanned so they are not the greatest quality, but still cute!

Seven Links

2011-08-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

We were asked by My life with flyball dogs to do the seven links/posts game. I did my best to try and remember all the thinks I'd written about and reviewed some of my older posts but didn't have time to look at all of them. So here is what I came up with.

Most Beautiful: My Best Friend, a tribute to my special dog Oreo.

Most Popular: I Knew It, this was according to blogger stats but only included the last few years. I wouldn't otherwise know how to figure it out so I guess that's good enough. I also have no idea why this post was so popular.

Most Controversial: Trial Results and Other Things, obviously it's the "other things" part of this that is controversial, it's a rant on whether or not your agility dog should be left intact. I have more to say on this subject of leaving dogs intact and whether or not I agree but maybe I will save that for another day. For the most part, lets just say I don't agree.

Most Helpful: Chocolate Toxicity, I chose this based on the number of people who call the clinic to ask if the amount of chocolate their pet ate is ok or not, and also the amount of people who think their dog will die if they eat an Oreo or a chocolate chip cookie.

Surprise Success: UD or not UD, again this came from Blogger stats. I don't know why this post was so popular but there you go, that's why it was a surprise I guess.

Didn't get the attention I felt it deserved: Lights Out, I think this post was not very popular because I wrote it early in my blogging career and didn't have many followers. Or maybe it's just not as interesting as I thought.

Most Proud Of: This one I had a hard time with. There are lots of posts I'm proud of, but all for different reasons. I ended up just picking this one because it's funny, popular, and based on real life.

So anyway, hope you enjoy those. If anyone else wants to play feel free to consider yourself tagged!

The Boys of Fall

2011-08-29T05:47:00.001-05:00

Ok, so it's really just one boy. But he's so handsome do you need more than one?

Puppy Mill Perspective

2011-08-28T08:40:00.002-05:00

Busy kid

2011-08-27T17:32:00.000-05:00

Since I obviously had no plans today I baby sat. This is one busy kid. She had a lot to get done today!

First, there was coloring

Then playing with the bunny

Summer got tired first!

Playing with the kitty

Lyric helped supervise the outdoor activities

Tending to the plants

Of course, the ever popular playing with the water hose

Putting the pool toys away

And watering the horses

She's passed out on the couch now. Wish I was too!

The final nail

2011-08-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

I'm from the midwest. I don't worry about hurricanes. I don't track or follow them or worry about categories. And I certainly don't think about them on perfectly sunny Missouri afternoons. Until now. Hurricane Irene is headed right for New England. Right when I'm supposed to be there. Yesterday they announced our concert would be moved to Friday night due to hurricane warnings in Boston on Sunday. By the time plane landed and we get to the stadium we would miss a good deal of the concert. Strike one.

Watching the news and the path of the storm did not bode well either. This is supposed to be the worst storn in New England in 100 years. Best case scenario, we spend 3 days sitting in the apartment, with or without power, talking about our half-concert experience. And no telling what it would be like trying to get back home with all the flights that are inevitably going to be cancelled. Strike two.

Then, Legend had a seizure. She's never had one before, that we know of. I fed them dinner and went to feet the cat when I heard the thud. When I turned around I first thought she must be choking but when I got there she was seizing. It was short, thankfully. Afterwards she looked at me like she didn't know me and ran off. When I went to her she growled like might bite me. I shut her in the bedroom alone, sat on the floor and had a meltdown. Strike three.

So I called my friend, we discussed and decided to cancel the trip. I took airline credit for my plane ticket. Our concert tickets will be refunded if I postmark them tomorrow. I'm beyond disappointed about this. We have literally had these tickets (so close to the stage!) for 10 months. Why did there have to be a hurricane this weekend? In New England??

Legend is fine now. You would never know anything happened. But it did. Now we have to wait and watch, and wonder. Will she have more? Is she epileptic? Is it something else? Hopefully it's nothing, just a freak event but only time will tell.

So, I didn't really have a good day. But there is always tomorrow.

Summer stuff

2011-08-22T09:18:00.001-05:00

I must say I've really enjoyed the last month with no agility trials. We've gotten to do a lot of "summer" stuff that we hadn't gotten to yet as well as getting lots of stuff done around the house and just plain old relaxing!

Next weekend I'm headed off for five days to visit a friend in New England. The highlight of the trip will be the Kenny Chesney/Zac Brown Band concert at Gillette Stadium-we have seats on the field and are very excited! This is the first time I'm flying by myself which is a little nerve wracking but not much.

Eva is doing well. She has even taken a few steps in her splint. I don't really want her walking on it but it does show how adaptable cats are. Her incision is healing well and she seems comfortable and happy.

Lyric is doing better on the teeter. I even took both girls to a class last week and she did that teeter just fine as well. They both ran well at class and got to use some of the distance and layering skills we have been working on.

I've been doing more running and am excited about doing more 5ks this fall and seeing how much I can get my time down.

Also we got Stormy sent off to Colorado and she's doing great in her new home!

Foster updates

2011-08-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

I had to amputate Eva's leg today. Further x-rays showed it could not be pinned. We tried to devise some elaborate double leg sling for her but could not get the fracture reduced and aligned. But it's just as well because when I was doing the surgery I noticed the end of the broken bone was starting to turn black and likely would not have healed even in the best circumstances. The other leg remains in a splint. She can't walk in the splint and will likely spend the next 3-4 weeks lying down. She had such a rough day I sort of wonder if I should have just put her down. But if she heals I guess 3-4 weeks is not bad for a long, happy life. Of course I need to find a nice family to give her that long, happy life...like maybe my mom and dad???

Speaking of long and happy lives, Stormy is off to her new home in Colorado this weekend! Actually she will only live there for 6-12 months and then the family will return home to their very lovely house in California. They seem super nice and very dedicated to their dogs and to giving Stormy a great life. She will have four kids to love on her and two other rescued border collies to play with. The mom is flying to Kansas City, renting a car and driving Stormy back to Colorado. We are meeting her in KC Saturday morning.

I got a recent update from Leeloo's (Ribbon) owners. She is growing into a beautiful, happy dog. They also had her DNA tested and it came back 50% BC and 50% Great Pyrenees. How cool is that-we were right!

Also, I'm having trouble leaving comments on some blogs-someone posted the fix to that somewhere but I don't remember where. Anyone know what to do?

Tiger Tri 2011

2011-08-13T15:19:00.000-05:00

A month or so ago two friends and I decided to to a triathlon relay-no one wanted to do the whole thing (or felt capable of that, I actually don't even own a bike) but thought a relay would be fun. So we entered, and we even trained a little!

Triathlons are apparently a whole different ballgame than your run of the mill road race. We had to follow a lot of guidelines as far as when to be where, getting signed it, etc. We had to pick up our race packet the night before and we all had to go (not together thank goodness don't know how we could have done that) and show photo ID just to get our numbers. Everyone had to have a 1 day USAT membership since we were not members just to enter.

Then we had to get up 4:30 to get to the designated parking area, get our timing chip, put our gear in the transition area and get "body-marked" by 6:45. This means that in addition to wearing a number (runners) and having one on the bike we got our number written on us 4 times in black sharpie. Also they wrote our ages on the back of our legs-also in black sharpie. I'm not sure what the point of that was.

Then they line all the swimmers up in order their estimated 300 yard swim time and let them go in the pool one at a time. Our swimmer waited in line 40 minutes. After the swim our biker took over for the 12 mile ride. There still people coming out of the pool when when she got back and then I took off on the 3.1 mile run.

Our overall time was 1 hour, 32 minutes. Against the other teams we didn't fare too well but could definitely improve since we didn't do much training. But against the individual competitors we were far from last so that was good! There was do dividing the teams by age or sex so we really have no idea who we were competing against.

But we did have fun and may even try it again next year. My 5K time was about a minute faster than the last race I did so I am hopeful to continue to improve with some actual training!

No hiding anything today!

Sharpie everywhere!

Livid

2011-08-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at work one of my previous foster kittens came in (Olivia, but due to a clerical error now Eva-we go through a lot of kittens!). The owner wandered in late in the afternoon without an appointment and mentioned that she was having trouble using her leg and placed the kitten on the counter. The receptionist came back and told us what the owner had said but added that the kitten appeared to be barely able to stand up. I told her we needed to get her worked in so they set him up with a work-in appointment.

The history he gave the tech was that they had tried to pull her out from under the bed YESTERDAY by her back legs and she had been limping ever since. Upon exam I found a kitten almost too painful to touch with an obvious fracture in one leg and possibly in the other. For their part the owners only seemed mildly concerned that they had inflicted this much pain on their cat and then allowed her to suffer. I announced we needed to sedate her, start pain meds and take x-rays and left the room fuming.

X-rays confirmed femoral (the thigh bone) fractures in BOTH hind legs! How are you so rough with a kitten you break 2 legs? Upon further examination of her record we noticed they failed to show up for her appointment to get spayed and finish her vaccines about 5 different times. Keep in mind this is a FREE spay included in the adoption fee.

We decided to quote them a price we thought they would be unwilling to pay for the repair and offer to take her back into rescue if they wanted. It worked and she is happily purring away on opiods now waiting to get her legs fixed. Maybe if they acted a little more like they cared we would have worked more with them-maybe if they had called right away, seemed concerned, worried or remorseful. Not casually wandering in the NEXT AFTERNOON like a broken leg (which he admitted might be possible) is no big deal.

To make things worse they asked if they could adopt another kitten, or, if we got this one all healed up could they come back and adopt her again. Seriously? Lets review the facts.

1. They broke 2 of this kitten's legs
2. Failed to bring her in for preventive care
3. Waited until the next day to seek attention for broken legs
4. Let kitten be obviously painful all night
5. Did not seem worried or concerned
6. Did not even consider coming up with money to fix the legs they broke
7. Virtually showed no hesitation in giving her up
8. And again-BROKE TWO LEGS!

So, that's a NO, on both accounts. They can get a kitten somewhere else, we put a lot of work into ours.

Tomorrow Eva should be having surgery on one leg and possibly a splint on the other after the doctor that does our orthopedic stuff takes a look at the x-rays to see what she can do. Eva has been a trooper-purring and wanting attention and even used her litter box! Also, she looks just like her momma Emmy now that she's a little more grown up.

She will be looking for a new and improved home once she is all healed up-anyone want a special kitten?

Behind

2011-08-08T20:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm behind in blogging, and blog reading again. Although admittedly not much to blog about this week. It's been super hot here-like a lot of the country so not much training going on. We've been out a few times for about 5 minutes and that was plenty for the dogs. I did get out the Manners Minder one day and used it. That was nice for me because all I had to do was stand and send-didn't have to run out and reload or guard the target every time!

It seems like I have a lot of stuff I want to work on with Legend-contacts, distance, obedience...
But for now I think I will focus on improving her speed and confidence on the contacts and table as that is our main hang up right now. Once she finishes her MACH (still hard to believe we are facing that reality!) I will focus more on distance work so she can get her NATCH and also more obedience.

Lyric is working on overcoming her teeter issue and also improving her weave poles and table.

We spent most of the weekend doing water related activity to keep cool which was enjoyable. Jerry even tried wakeboarding yesterday. I opted to stay in the boat or float in the water-more relaxing.

If you recall last summer we finally put in stalls for the horses. This is great if we know the weather will be really bad and we put them in. But this doesn't help much if there is a pop up storm and cold wind or something. But we realized if we install one more panel in the barn we can swing out the stall door closest to the barn door to meet the new panel and create a run-in situation for them. Now, if the weather is questionable or not bad enough to lock them in and shut the door they have the choice to go in and out. They seem to like it as they were hanging out in it before we had finished bolting in the panel! They are getting pretty spoiled these days.

Eventually I will have some more pictures to post!

Five

2011-07-31T22:03:00.000-05:00

Five QQ's. That's what we are down to (well, that and 54 points but we'll get that just getting the 5 QQ's). It's a little surreal to me that we are that close. But I guess it's good that it doesn't seem real because as it is, I get so nervous every time we're running for a QQ!

So, yes, obviously today was better. Legend did all the contact equipment like she's never had any problem at all. I'm happy about that, but baffled. We're still going to work on it though-can't take any chances.

Lyric did better, went further up the teeter but not all the way, also had a refusal at the table. Then we managed to somehow NQ in jumpers again without knowing what went wrong. I was pretty sure I saw the judge's hand go up during our run so at least it wasn't a total shock when I picked up my scribe sheet. And I know roughly where on the course it was. But still, I guess I need to pay closer attention. I guess Lyric wants this to be Legend's year!

I'm mailing Legend's entry for NADAC nationals tomorrow. Technicallly we don't have all the points but hopefully enough to still get in! Now, time to rest.

Issues

2011-07-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

We are in the midst of the 3 day trial in STL this weekend. And if you can't guess by the post title it's not going that great. Both dogs have developed some aversion to contact equipment apparently.

Lyric has become increasingly concerned about teeters the last few trials and this weekend won't do the teeter at all (well, she gets on but only takes a couple steps and jumps off) and subsequently is afraid that the other contacts are also teeters and is getting refusals at those before going up. Her jumpers runs have been fair-missed a weave pole yesterday and today must have gone around a jump. I didn't know it until I picked up my scribe sheet though so at least it was a "mental" Q. Sure thought it was a clean run!

Legend performed her random refusal of the a-frame yesterday and threw in a teeter refusal as well. She refused the teeter again today but did the a-frame fine?? What drives me so insane is that the always does everything the second time. Why can't she just do it the first time? And why, after 4 years of trialing does she do it at all? And, no she's not injured in any way that I can tell. Just crazy. So my plan is to keep working hard on contacts with them at home and also to take them to some other places to work contacts. We had such a good first 6 months of the year and now she's doing weird stuff and running a little slower-it's always something with dogs huh? She has gotten 2 jumpers Q's though. Maybe tomorrow is our QQ day.

Stormy is getting lots of lookers but no takers yet. She's being very well behaved though-I'm so proud of her.

Two years

2011-07-26T14:26:00.001-05:00

Where does the time go? I sure miss this guy. It takes all three of the dogs we have now to "replace" him.

Consumed

2011-07-24T20:33:00.001-05:00

This weekend was our club's NADAC trial and so, being on the trial committee, I spent a lot of extra time helping with set-up, tear down, working, etc. In addition to doing 19 runs with my dogs.

But overall we had a pretty good trial. Yesterday Legend picked up an elite regular, a novice touch and go (yep still in novice, but getting there) and most exciting-her very first elite chances Q. Now I know she can actually do it. After today's attempt though I was more humbled and know we need still more practice. Lyric got an elite regular, novice touch and go and finished her open jumpers title!

This morning I convinced Jerry to run Legend in tunnelers-we already have our title and don't need any tunnelers points for nationals so it would give me one less run to do! They did a great job-he never handles or trains the dogs, he even had to learn about front crosses during walk throughs! They were clean but a hair over time-not too shabby for elite! Legend picked up another regular leg and then her first elite weavers leg. Lyric finished her Elite Regular title today and was a few seconds over time in her other regular run. I decided to take a chance and move her up to elite jumpers today. Jumpers was the last even in a long hot weekend and I knew it would be hard for her to make time but I pushed as hard as I could and she ended up only 1/2 second over time on a 22 obstacle course. She'll get it eventually-tried so hard for me today.

And, Legend refused the dogwalk twice out of something like 6 attempts. It seems to be when she doesn't have much momentum going-as in the beginning of the course. I think I may give her shorter (but obviously not unsafe) approaches at home to show that she really can do it even when she's not at full speed. Of course if I could get her started faster that would help too but I've never been all that successful in getting her to do that. We take what we can get and fix what we can fix I guess. Why do dogs always give us something to work on? They think they don't get enough treats and need to find things for us to practice with them?

Now it's time to relax and get ready for 3 days of AKC next weekend! I hope to catch up on everyone's blog this week-I haven't read any since we went on vacation!

Hawaii!

2011-07-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

We started our vacation on the Big Island which we did not visit last time. I was curious as to how I would like it because unlike Oahu it's not known for it's traditional white sand beaches. But after spending several days there I found it to be my favorite island so far. I found the rocky coastlines and rugged cliffs to be, in some ways, much more striking than the quiet, sandy beaches. They are not great for swimming but if you want to sight-see and hike they are perfect. The more laid back, quieter lifestyle was a little more my speed than the hustle and bustle of Waikiki.

We stayed in Kona, and our hotel ended up being super convenient. We were able to walk to all the little shops and restaurants along the coast line, as well as the pier and the neighboring hotel had a small beach in a little cove. The Kona coast only gets 10 inches of rain a year and the weather is nearly always perfect so a lot of the restaurants are open air-no windows, sometimes no doors, even when they are closed, if you really wanted to you could just climb in! This was great for me because the a/c in most restaurants during the summer freezes me out!

Here are some views from around Kona...

Of course we had to go to Volcano National Park, but unfortunately there was no active lava flow to view while we were there. But still we saw and did some cool stuff.

We passes this on the way there-lucky cows! There is no fence along the ocean-I guess there is not much concern the cows will swim away.

Kilauea

We took a hike that led us through the middle of Kilauea Iki Crater-the lava we walked on was still cooling from a 1959 eruption. I'm not sure how much you could really tell it was still warm given that we were walking across black surface in direct sun-it was going to be hot anyway! The light colored pathway is the trail.

These are plants growing in the cracks where the lava folded, broke, or collapsed on itself.

A pile of lava. See the steam on the left-there were steam vents all over the place, they smoke like that constantly.

We stopped at Whittington park on the way to see the volcanoes. It was a worthy stop-very beautiful.

This is not a sign we see in Missouri!

We spent a morning driving up to Pololu Valley lookout. It's really pretty from the top but there is a trail that takes you to the bottom-if you go here, don't skip the trail! It's totally worth it for the additional views you get and the black sand beach and view of the valley you get at the bottom. There are a lot of scary signs about dangerous cliffs and falling rock but just ignore these.

From the top

On the way down

At the bottom

We then spent the afternoon at Hapuna Beach. The sand here is imported from Australia (there are few or maybe even zero natural white sand beaches on the Big Island), but really, who cares?

The next day we spent seeing more sights around the island including the highly recommended Akaka Falls. While it was a big waterfall, I didn't really think it was the most spectacular waterfall I have ever seen. Not sure it lived up to all the hype.

We also went to Rainbow Falls, but we were there at the wrong time to see the rainbows.

This was just a cool tree we saw while we were there

On the way to these places we stopped at Laupahoehoe. I thought this was one of the most beautiful places we went to and it was barely mentioned in any of our travel maps. We only stopped because there was one picture posted and I thought it looked cool. But really after being there, no picture really does it justice. But here are some that try!

We made another quick stop at Onomea Bay

And at Kolekole Beach Park

We also stopped at a Black Sand Beach and saw this guy

And finally, we got this cool photo driving back to the hotel one evening.

Then we spent a few days on Oahu. There were a few things we didn't get to the there the first time around like Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Cultural Center. While here, we splurged and stayed at the Hilton-it was really nice, but really big. You probably need to spend a lot of time actually at the resort (we did spend about a day and a half just hanging out at the beach and pools there) to get your money's worth but it was fun to do at least once!

Some of the views around the hotel...

Yes, we were surprised to see Penguins in Hawaii. I think they were called African Penguins-they seemed to like the warm weather.

Part of the island tour we took make a brief stop at Sunset Beach. We actually spend a day here on our honeymoon but this time the highlight was getting to see an endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal hanging out on the beach.

Our last day we spent at Kailua and Lanikai beaches to snorkel and relax on the beach and hopefully see Sea Turtles. I didn't think the snorkeling was as good as it was in Maui-the water seemed rougher and not as clear. It might be better if you go further out but I wasn't willing to that far out. We did see some turtle and Jerry swam really close to one-he got pictures with the underwater camera but we don't have those yet-it has film! We actually have to develop them!

Aloha!

2011-07-13T16:20:00.001-05:00

We've been in Hawaii since Friday afternoon and obviously too busy to blog! We've had a few rain showers (our Luau got rained out) but by and large the weather has been perfect! We spent our first several days in Kona which is super convenient for walking to restaurants and shopping and the pier. We've also been to volcano national park, the beach, Hilo, on a cruise and to many scenic places and on a few great hikes.

I'll have lots more details and photos to post when I get home but here are just a few from my phone.

Video and pics

2011-07-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

Here is Lyric's best jumpers run from the weekend and some pics of Legend playing at the lake-her favorite thing!

All things considered

2011-07-04T20:52:00.000-05:00

Jumpers could have turned out much worse. At some point during the lapse between standard and jumpers the sky clouded up. Distant thunder was heard. By the time the walk through for jumpers rolled around there was a raging thunderstorm going on outside. And then I heard a noise in the event center I had not heard all weekend. Surely that's not the tornado sirens? Right? Well, you guessed it-it was. The next thing I knew everyone was grabbing their dogs and heading to the hallway. That's a lot of dogs (half of whom are afraid of thunder) in one hallway. I must say though, the girls remained very calm during the whole thing, which was over in about 10-15 minutes with no tornado.

A few minutes later though we had to be in the ring. Lyric had a great run, only missing the last few weave poles. I was pretty proud of her considering the booming thunder, rain slamming into the metal building, it being the end of a very long weekend and me trying to remember the course after all the excitement!

As the storm slowly petered out I waited on Legend's run. She managed to get a Q going 4/6 on the weekend. Not a lot of points to show for it, but we still got some and we don't need that many more anyway.

Here a few pics from the trial. I will post video and some swimming pics later.

In-between

2011-07-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

We've had better weekends. We've had worse weekends. Given the last two trials I should be pretty happy with what we have so far.

Lyric has earned two jumpers Qs, one with a second place. 0/3 in standard for various reasons-weave poles and teeter mostly but one day she refused the table and missed a discrimination. She seems to really be stressing over the teeter lately which translates to stress at the dogwalk too I think as she is not bolting over it like she used to. So we will be working lots of teeter and I think the dogwalk will come back. Also she needs to work on flips and rear crosses into tunnels. Although we've had a few weave pole failures this weekend I do feel she has made great progress on them but it's on the list to keep practicing.

Legend is 3/5 so far with a QQ yesterday. She is taking some issue with the teeter this weekend so we will work on that at home. I'd also like to speed up her dogwalk. It's not very consistent and this weekend was particularly slow. She has actually been slow in general this weekend. Not sure what's up with that. I was getting pretty used to running my moderately fast, confident dog. Maybe it's the stress of 3 days plus obedience, the surface or the contact equipment. Although the equipment seems very solid here she is Legend after all.

Open obedience went fairly well. She failed the drop on recall both days. We need to work on that. Her retrieve on the flat was nice but yesterday she didn't quite come in all the way. Her retrieve over the jump was lovely both days-but she didn't wait for my command either day. And she actually jumped the broad jump both days! Her heeling was quite nice today-far from perfect but really improved from the past. And she only missed one sit today and got all her finishes. I was most pleased with her attitude today. She was more relaxed and attentive and had a little more sharpness to her. So, making progress. I might even try to get to another obedience trial this year.

We took her to the park last night to play in the lake. She had so much fun. Too bad there is not some kind of water obstacle in agility!

Still have to run jumpers with both of them. We will see what the can pull off at the end of a long weekend. Video and pictures to follow!

Good

2011-06-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

Barney seems to be getting better. I wouldn't say he's fully recovered from whatever he had but seems to be getting there. I know he's not fully better because he doesn't gobble all his food right away, but he is finishing everything I give him eventually. And he acts pretty good.

My friend came through a major surgery with flying colors and was in good spirits at the hospital when I visited last night. She's already looking forward to running agility again.

We spend yesterday out on the lake. Some friends invited us on their boat. Same friends that invited us kayaking. I must say, boat with motor, much better than kayak! I look a little like a tomato today but not as bad as I thought I might.

We are spending a long weekend (all of us-Me, Jerry and all our dogs) in St. Louis for the 4th of July weekend and an agility/obedience trial and the following week are leaving for Hawaii!