The State of the Pack

We have not forgotten about R so I thought that I'd give you an update on him. Because we cannot seem to avoid veterinary mysteries, his saga of damaged red blood cells ("acanthocytes") and weird lymphocytes in his blood has continued. On the same day as Shyla had her xrays, R had blood drawn. His blood cells were slightly better but still not normal. On the good news side of the ledger, we've managed to put a few pounds back on his athletic frame so he's looking more healthy now. He loves getting a full-sized lunch every day!

You might remember that the presence of acanthocytes in a dog's blood is usually an indicator of a serious disease. We searched with ultrasound for hemangiosarcoma tumors in all of the usual sites and didn't find any. We tested his kidney and liver function - both were fine. Since then, we've been watching him and waiting to see if his body healed on its own. Since it hasn't, we are looking for less common causes of the acanthocytes.

We believe that a bad bag of Natural Balance kibble started the whole saga. Since then, we've had extended periods of feeding him home cooked meals and then two different kinds of high quality kibble. His best blood test happened while we were homecooking for him.

Because we know that a long-term homecooked diet has to be carefully balanced, we consulted a veterinarian who specializes in nutrition for help with R's diet. She says that there is a step in a dog's metabolism that can be damaged by toxins or other processes, resulting in an inability to metabolize certain nutrients - and also resulting in damage to the dog's red blood cells. Thus, in a dog with this problem, the wrong diet will cause acanthocytes to appear. This vet has designed a homecooked diet for R that we're in the process of starting. It is quite simple - beef, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, oil, and a supplement.

The new diet doesn't sound fancy or super-special to me. So, I asked the veterinarian if there was a kibble that would work for R. Her reply was that no kibble had the right balance of nutrients and ingredients to solve this problem. So, we're giving the homecooked diet a try for at least a month, and then we'll have R's blood tested again to see if it improves.

I must say that R has seemed energetic and happy at every point in this saga except for the beginning when he was quite sick. He and I had a wonderful mountain bike ride together today, and then we sat for a moment on Hug Hill. I love his eyes and how they reflect the world that he's looking at, including me!

We are waiting for the results of Shyla's tests. The good news is that her limp seems to be getting much better. It's barely noticeable now. That has to be good news, doesn't it?

And, her energy level is through the roof. Indeed, for the first time since she joined our family, she's become a destructive chewer. Unfortunately, her favorite things to chew are my clothes. She's chewed the zippers out of 4 favorite jackets and fleece sweaters. It's time to puppy-proof the house, at least until Shyla is allowed to exercise again. We're hoping that's soon!

I love her anyway and completely forgive her for eating my clothes.

If you're looking for a good investment, I can give you the name of our vet hospital. With our business alone, they must be hugely profitable :)

Thanks to all of you for the supportive comments and emails. They make such a big difference when I am going through a crisis with one (or both) of our pups. I am very grateful.

No real news

We don't know much more than we knew this morning. The experts at CSU did not want to biopsy Shyla's ulna until they had performed other tests for fungal and bacterial bone infections. Those tests are pending. We did get one good result, which is that there's no disease visible in Shyla's lungs in chest x-rays, like cancer mets or nodules from fungal disease.

As for osteosarcoma (OSA), it's still on the list. But, at Shyla's age, the odds of it occurring are low enough that the vets would prefer to do other tests before doing a bone biopsy, primarily because the biopsy might weaken the bone. And, we all hope that Shyla will need a strong ulna for a long time. Moreover, if it is OSA, it isn't a battle that we're likely to win... so waiting a couple of weeks to diagnose it while we test for other things isn't a big deal.

It was a long day, as it always is when we go all the way to the experts at CSU. We left our house in the early morning and just recently arrived home. In some ways, it was a heart-wrenching day for me. They put us in the exam room where K was often seen, and I remembered the grief that I felt over the bad news that seemed to slam us during every single one of K's appointments. It felt surreal to be there with a new dog, a young Shyla.

On the heartwarming side, Shyla was jaw-droppingly comfortable with the veterinary staff. She did her "relax" command beautifully, as a resident examined her and four vet students stood over her to watch the exam. I was about to object to the set-up, thinking that it would be scary for Shyla to have so many people peering at her as she lay on her back, but then I saw the relaxed look on her face and I kept my mouth shut. Our girl is changing at warp speed.

After the initial exam, Shyla was taken to "the back" (for hours - I'm not exaggerating - all while I waited in the exam room), and I'm told that she won many friends with her sweet and sensitive personality. Finally, I almost fell over in amazement when she met a 2-year-old boy in the waiting room after her appointment. She chose to say "hi" to him on her own initiative (with his mother's permission), and she even gave him kisses!

I was so proud of Shyla today. She has such courage and sweetness in her heart. I feel lucky to have her by my side and to have the honor of teaching her all about our world.

I promise to keep you posted as we find out the test results. I really hoped that we'd have definitive news today - for the sake of our hearts - but the vets felt strongly that it was not in Shyla's best interest to do a bone biopsy today.

We're Not Lightning Rods

I'm having a rough weekend so far. I feel as if I risked my heart again, somewhat reluctantly after the heartbreak of K's death, and now my heart is being trampled, again. Shyla was my hope for a happy and unworried dog life, for at least a few years. It seems as if we've skipped straight from the puppy happiness to the "older dog worries" while her age is still measured in months and she has no white fur on her muzzle.

Serious bone infections and osteosarcoma are rare things. I have to believe that we are not being struck by lightning twice in one year. The Runner feels confident that we are not lightning rods. I am not as confident but I'm heartened by his attitude...

All of us dog lovers know, even when we meet our puppy for the very first time, that someday, hopefully many years later, we will cry tears of deep grief for our puppy. But, we do give our hearts to dogs again and again because the joy of the journey far outweighs the grief of the parting. For the first time, I am having to contemplate this rationalization in a puppy. The joy still wins... but it's a much harder tradeoff to contemplate.

I'm sorry for this morose post... I write from my heart so I can't pretend.

A cliff

When K was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, I titled my post "Falling off a cliff" (Dec 24, 2011). This was a photo from that morning.

K on the morning of her diagnosis

Today, we got very close to the edge of the same cliff. The radiologist was very concerned about Shyla's x-rays of her left forelimb - far more concerned than our family vet was yesterday. Indeed, he was so concerned that we have an appointment at Colorado State Vet School for a bone biopsy on Monday morning. The list of possible reasons for the "lytic lesion" on her ulna are: 1) bacterial infection, 2) fungal infection, 3) bone cancer (OSA), and 4) an old hairline fracture. The old hairline fracture option is a remote possibility, at best.

Shyla's eyes are windows into a beautiful soul

After our vet and I talked through the situation, she commented that I was far more calm than she expected after all we've been through in the past year. Well, if she could have seen me, she would've known that I wasn't calm - I was barely holding myself together to make key decisions. When "bone cancer" came on the radar screen as a real possibility, my entire body started to tremble. After I hung up the phone, I tried to sip my tea but I couldn't even lift the cup to my lips because my body was shaking all over.

As I trembled, this girl began showering me in kisses.

We will somehow get through this weekend, awaiting the Monday biopsy, just like we somehow survived all the various heart-wrenching phases of K's journey. But, I finally have to ask - why is this happening again? My vet suggested that Shyla came to us because she needed someone who would help her through this - someone with enough experience with exactly this kind of problem to know how to handle it. I don't know if that's true... but we will do our very best to help Shyla.

Some of you might remember that K had a serious bone infection and toe amputation one year before her OSA diagnosis in the same limb. So, I feel like every option on the radiologist's list is a rehash of the veterinary nightmare that K had for the last 18 months of her life. But, I also remember that those 18 months were precious and filled with love. K rose above her veterinary challenges to live joyfully. I know that Shyla will too... but I hope that the challenges are minor rather than major.

I know that today is "See Beautiful" Friday. Regardless of the circumstances, Shyla is beautiful on the outside and beautiful deep in her soul. Even if my worst fears are realized (which I still believe will not happen), I have no regrets. Shyla is a true gift.

Every day, I "see beautiful" in Shyla.

I love her for her puppy enthusiasm, her trust of me, and the growing bond between us. Here's to more puppy days... where she can look as goofy as she did today when a gust of mountain wind hit us!

Please don't worry if I fall silent this weekend. I'm not sure if I'll feel like blogging or not.

Dog training and mountain lions

A day at the vet... So, we got started early, Shyla and I, heading out into the sunrise. I will never cease to love seeing a her fur turn red in the sunrise light.

A little later, her fur was a more normal, chocolate, color.

I knew that she'd be getting x-rays during her time at the vet today so we practiced her "relax" cue. She fell asleep - I'm not kidding. Relaxing, when at home on the trails, is no problem for Shyla!

I've learned from our veterinary misadventures over the years that it's important to teach my dogs to lie on both sides. Shyla is the first of my dogs who switches sides by rolling over on her back. She ended up covered in pine needles after rolling over.

She was an in-patient today so that the vets could get to the bottom of her limp. The vets and techs said that she behaved beautifully and was a super happy girl. That makes my heart sing.

We don't have a diagnosis for the cause of her limp yet - a board-certified radiologist needs to look at her confusing x-rays. My vet did say, however, that the abnormalities do not look like osteosarcoma or any kind of joint malformation. Bone cancer was the elephant in the room for me... as I'm sure that you can all imagine.

While Shyla was at the vet, R and I spent some quality time together. Well, he might say that I was torturing him. We rode up to Hug Hill, and then we played some "leave it" games. In the photo below, R was restraining himself from eating the fancy cookie!

R always takes the strategy of not looking at the cookie. I am reminded of the test where a child is put in a room with an oreo. If the child can sit in the room and not eat the oreo for several minutes, he/she is rewarded with multiple oreos. Some kids take the same strategy as R, not looking at the forbidden treat.

After playing with R, I visited trail cameras. Yet another mountain lion has been making the rounds. I had photos of this big cat on many cameras. First, he passed a camera on a path very occasionally used by humans. Indeed, some fast-moving humans came up behind him just minutes later. I wonder whether they saw him?

Then, hours later, he walked past a camera miles away on a barely perceptible animal trail, pausing for an instant just in front of it.

Then, he walked onward. Look at his distended belly. He had eaten a big meal very recently.

I adore the long and graceful tails of these animals.

And, he departed, heading for a more major path.

We've had a true flurry of mountain lions recently. I don't remember ever getting so many photos in such a short time. This guy continued his rounds for the next 12 hours, and I captured photos of him acting goofy, wriggling on his back, in the middle of the night. I'll save those for another day.

Wordless Wednesday

Eyes and whiskers

During our morning hike, I had fun playing with my camera, using a very selective depth of field to accentuate different aspects of Shyla's face. Her eyes...

 Her nose and whiskers. She says "I've got whiskers. How about you?"

 And, those glowing eyes again.

During our evening hike, R stood proud atop a boulder with beautiful sunset sky behind him.

I didn't really discover photography until a couple of years ago although my mother was an accomplished photographer. It's so much fun to make artistic photos of my dogs in our beautiful mountain terrain.

Our first advanced training class

Shyla had another big success yesterday. She went to her first advanced training class. It's a class for dogs who can perform all their basic training exercises in controlled settings, like a quiet classroom. The advanced class meets in town at a different location each week. Yesterday, it was at a park, with many screaming kids, bikes, scooters, hikers, and other dogs.

As I Shyla and I arrived at class, I found myself unconsciously thinking that she was K. The reason was that I went to innumerable training classes with K at this exact site. Of course, when K was grown up, she found most parts of the classes to be easy - she could heel, sit, down, wait, etc. with no help from me whatsoever.

Yesterday, as we walked toward the class, I heard myself casually say "heel" to Shyla just like I used to say it to K. Then I was shocked when Shyla started yanking on the leash! Silly me... of course Shyla couldn't behave like a seasoned grown-up yet in such a bustling environment. I'd simply forgotten who was on the other end of the leash.

After I realized who I was training (duh), Shyla actually did astoundingly well during class. She couldn't ace the training exercises due to all the distractions. However, she was relaxed in the midst of the Sunday afternoon bustle of the park. That's a victory.

Then, our trainer asked the handlers to try to calm our dogs enough that they would just lie still and relax despite the bustle, including the screaming kids. Believe it or not, Shyla relaxed so much that she rolled onto her back for a belly rub. Yep, this is the same dog who had a "melt-down" in a very similar city park just two months ago. She has come miles and miles and miles since then!

We're still waiting for Shyla's limp to improve (and we're consulting vets about it). In the meantime, we're doing our training, taking short leash walks, and stopping to watch the sunrises and sunsets.

Celebration!

It was a big weekend for Shyla even though she's still "resting" to try to heal her limp.

Shyla met my nephews, ages 7 and 9, and it went amazingly well! I've been preparing for this event for quite a while. I knew that I needed to do a lot of groundwork first due to Shyla's discomfort around children who we saw in town. Since realizing that children were an issue for Shyla, we've specifically gone to town on many occasions so that Shyla could observe children playing in parks, with me rewarding her for relaxed and happy reactions.

Yesterday, we finally set up a meeting between my nephews and Shyla. We orchestrated it very carefully. We met at a trail, and I asked the family to walk ahead of me and Shyla. We caught up from behind (the least threatening way for an underconfident dog to meet people), and the boys didn't pay any attention to Shyla whatsoever.

After we'd been walking behind the boys comfortably for a while, I asked each boy to hold his hand down with the palm pointed toward Shyla while we all walked. Then, I asked Shyla to "touch" their hands, and she did! She seemed very curious about them and only mildly worried. By the end of the walk, Shyla seemed happy to be around the boys.

I have to say that this incredibly successful meeting was largely due to how beautifully the two boys handled interacting with Shyla. They were very careful not to look directly at her and not to be too boisterous. Thanks to their amazing help, I think that Shyla took a huge step toward being happy around children yesterday!!!!

To end our weekend, we saw an incredible sunset over our local ski area.

When I looked at the bigger picture (the ski area is in the lower right corner of this photo), the scene was even more beautiful!

Those look to me like the colors of celebration - celebration of the amazing progress that Shyla is making!

Ready for winter

It's time to explain why there have been no "action" photos of Shyla lately.

About five days ago, we were doing some training on a grassy field in a town park. Shyla was walking on leash and suddenly came up lame on a front limb for no apparent reason. We've been doing R & R ever since, hoping that it would be a puppy muscle "tweak" that would just go away. Indeed, that was our vet's guess when she did an exam earlier this week. The vet said that it felt like a soft tissue injury that she guessed would heal on its own with rest.

Alas, Shyla is still limping, and I'm thinking that it's time to get an appointment with an orthopedist. Usually, they're booked pretty far out so we can make an appointment and continue our program of resting until then, cancelling the appointment if Shyla gets better before it.

I have to admit to being pretty upset about Shyla's limp. After all the veterinary drama in our house in the past year, I desperately want Shyla to be in perfect health for a while! And, I love the girl so I hate seeing her be constrained to short leash walks and no playing.

So, today, we continued with training in the morning instead of a long hike or romp. First, we worked on "leave it", using one of the most tempting "treats" on the trails. Shyla sampled one of these piles the other day and decided that it was a delicacy. It looks as if "leave it" will work very well for keeping her away from the piles of horse nuggets that seem to appear like landmines on the trails every weekend.

Then, we worked on "relax", in a new place. Shyla was lying on a bed of pine needles and looked very relaxed and comfortable.

Indeed, she seemed to doze off for an instant. She's getting the hang of "relaxing"!

When I stood right above Shyla, she rolled onto her back and tried to get me to play with her. What a cutie!

You can also see that Shyla has a "Cycle Dog" collar. It's made from recycled bike tubes and seems comfy and durable. I truly hope that Shyla's leg gets better in time for her to start running with me as I mountain bike on her first birthday! It's less than a month away.

After my "Shyla time" this morning, I checked a remote trail camera that has hosted both a bobcat and a coyote family since I last visited it.

I wonder if the coyotes smelled the bobcat based on their sniffing. It's interesting to see that one of them seemed to be the "lookout" for the group. Their coats are so thick that they look substantially bigger than in mid-summer. They're ready for winter!

Now, it's time for all of us to get as ready as the coyotes for the winter ahead!

More Shyla Training

Shyla and I have been continuing her training. She learns faster than any dog that I've trained before. Of course, I'm a more experienced trainer than in the past but I think that there's something special about Shyla. She has an incredible combination of brains, calmness, and focus on me that lets her learn quickly.

We do a lot of our training during our morning hikes. Here, Shyla did a down-stay on the base of K's Rock.

If you look closely, she was also doing a "leave it". I balanced a super-yummy salmon treat on her paw, and I told her to "leave it" until I gave her permission to eat it. This was the first time that I ever tried such a tough "leave it" with her, and she aced it!

Next, we worked on a cue that I call "relax", which means to lie on your side and stay still. I started teaching "relax" to Shyla due to a not-so-great vet visit the other day. Shyla generally loves going to our vet hospital. But, this week, the vet needed Shyla to lie on her side for an exam for the first time. I wasn't present (although I wanted to be - but the exam was in a room that "clients" are not allowed in). Afterwards, I found out that Shyla submissively urinated each time the vet and techs tried to get her on her side.

So, I decided that it was time to make lying on her side fun. Shyla learned how to do "relax" in about 5 minutes, and I rewarded her lavishly each time she did it. She was almost throwing herself onto her side after a few minutes of training. I'm sure that it will take a lot of practice for her to "relax" in all sorts of environments (like at the vet) or with excitement going on around her. But, this morning, she learned how to "relax" in our meadow. I was astounded that Shyla learned it well enough to let me back away and take a photo in our very first session!

Of course, R is the master of "relax". He'll do it anytime and anyplace! Today, he "relaxed" on top of Hug Hill. This fall, he "relaxed" so well that the vets could do an echocardiogram without restraining him at all.

Training R is very different from training Shyla. He's so high-drive that I have to focus on keeping him calm enough to learn (and I'm not always successful). But, when he has learned something, he throws his whole soul into doing whatever it is.

After my "dog time" this morning, I had a peaceful bike ride. I spotted a beautiful spot on the floor of the forest. A golden aspen leaf resting on a bed of moss had emerged from under the snow.

It reminded me to enjoy these mild autumn days that we're having right now. Winter will certainly reign very soon!