Its almost the holidays again! How did this happen?
Poor Skyler, my older tri colored sheltie-- it is suspected he has some type of bladder cancer ;-(. We ruled out most everything that could be causing his leaking and the blood that is in his urine. Anyway, that is the thought right now. He got a round of antibiotics and started some Chinese herbs....Suprisingly after the antibiotics he stopped all leaking, but now he's been off the antibiotics for a few weeks and it has come back. The thing is to make a definitive diagnosis we would have to do an ultrasound ..the vet asked if we would do radiation to treat it if that is what we found. The poor guy is not in the best of health, he's comfortable and with how much time that would give him, I do not want to put him through something like that for the short extra time that would give him even if it was successful. So we enjoy the time we have with Skyler, and he is stubborn enough he will probably live several more years. ;-)
Other then Skyler things have been going good. Lizzie has stayed out of the gummy vitamins, Breeze is feeling better and moving better, Chloe my sable sheltie has lost a little weight and is in much better shape-although she has as much attitude as ever and that is what gets her in trouble with the other dogs. I am really excited, the last few days I have been able to do a little jog, just a little and some running on the treadmill. WHOOT! My bionic knee with the total knee replacement is amazing, still stiff at times but it really works well, but the other non replaced knee has been a bad knee lately, until the last two or three days. My hope is that the knee holds up long enough I can do some trailing with Cricket and have some fun before I have to get it replaced and go through rehab again. I also am going to the gym most days and doing a LOT of lower body weights so hopefully the next recovery will go faster.
But for the fun stuff, Cricket and I have been practicing on small sequences for agility. The good news is that Cricket loves agility and will run for anyone. Anyone want to run Cricket for me in a few trials???? LOL.
Everyone is doing nose work- we did an online class with Margaret Simek -that was pretty awesome and all the dogs were able to do that. We also did an online rally...with Deborah Jones-we were sort of slackers on that class-but hey we got the basics and will continue working. Then Cricket and I did the jump foundation online class Level 1 with Linda M, that was one intense course.
SOOOOOOO what should we take this semester.,,,humm, I am a real lover of online classes, and everyone has sign ups right about now. The front runners are two Denise Fenzi classes, Bridging the Gap about how to wean out some reinforcers, and Denise's Play class, and maybe Stacy Goudy's Front Cross/rear cross class, or maybe auditing Linda M/Mary Ellen Barry's Fancy Cues-because that sounds so interesting and I am going to a One Mind Dog training/handling seminar next month and that class will cover the similarities and differences in Linda's Awesome Paws Handling and the One Mind Dog system. But geese, looking at that list there is no way I can possibly keep up with all of that, esp over the holidays, so some hard choices will have to be made, very quickly ;-).
OK THE BEST NEWS-I FOUND MY VIDEO CAMERA-so I am going to kick myself in the butt and start videoing some of the things we are working on so I can make things more interesting and post some of the things we have been up to.
6 comments:
Oh Kathy, so sorry to hear about Skylar :( My first sheltie, Munchkin, had those exact same symptoms. I ended up keeping him on the antibiotics indefinitely. They gave him 4 months to live, and he hung around for two years - so I hope stubborn Skylar does the same.
Online classes are so much fun. Can't wait to take the Fenzi precision heeling!
So sorry about Skyler.
Im only taking one on line class, and Im having a hard time keeping up with the assignments. LOL
Sara, hang in there with the precision heeling,...it's a great class with great basics but I thought it was a little hard to get into---- BUT SO WORTH IT as we got to the Heeling games, that was the most awesome class ever!
Diana, boy, I took three online classes last time....and one was the Linda M jumping, they are all over and I'm still so SERIOUSLY behind, good thing I was auditing!
Sara, hang in there with the precision heeling,...it's a great class with great basics but I thought it was a little hard to get into---- BUT SO WORTH IT as we got to the Heeling games, that was the most awesome class ever!
So sorry about Skyler. Hope he hangs in there and feels better.
I was shocked at how fast Denise's play class sold out and the top level. It was the class that looked most intriguing to me though.
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