Zephyr Turns 8!

Zephyr received this birthday card from a friend and now he wants me to buy him another car.  I had to buy them a new Toyota Sienna this summer so as to insure that he and Astro ride comfortably with all their stuff.  But, he says the next one is for the babes.

My sweet Zephyr turned 8 years old on January 6.  It's hard to believe that he's that old, but in some ways it seems like he's been with me forever.  I still feel so grateful to have him with me everyday.  He has been super healthy and has even managed to not injure himself in the past year. 

To celebrate the passing of his eighth year I cooked some bison burger to add to his meal.  He loves it and bison seems to sit better with his belly than beef.  The bowl was licked clean.  Zephyr has become even more sweet and loving as he has aged.  He loves to just push up against me and others for some serious love and rubs.

Astro greatly appreciated Zephyr's birthday celebration too.  It's also hard to accept that this boy will be 6 this summer.

Our winter has been fairly mild again this year.  We've had a couple snow storms but then it warms up into the 40s and even 50s.  So, we've been heading out to the agility field in Cottonwood to enjoy the nice weather. 

Happy New Year, 2015!

Happy New Year to all our blog friends!  Once again, I'm sorry to not be keeping the blog updated.  But, things have been going well for the most part.  Pablo did pass away in August, eleven years didn't seem long enough for him.  With the exception of Astro trying to recover from a toe injury that happened in early May, everyone has been happy and healthy.  The boys had a great run at the agility field the other day.  I hope everyone out there is doing great!

Pablo

Pablo (left) and Riley, January 2014

In the last couple months Pablo has had some trouble and last week I found out he likely has gastrointestinal cancer.  In February I noticed that he was shedding a lot, even for the mild winter that we had.  He usually has a super thick coat with a full undercoat.  Over a month or so he lost most of his undercoat and a lot of his regular coat.  Soon after he started to lose weight.  He wasn't overweight to start with and went from about 10.5 lbs to 8.5 lbs.  He suffers from allergies and takes cyclosporine (generic Atopica) which sometimes makes his stomach upset, so at first I thought the weight loss was related to that.  But, he was actually super hungry and eating more than normal and still losing weight. 

Last week I took him to the vet for blood work, etc.  She suspected a thyroid problem because his symptoms matched hyperthyroidism, or possibly renal failure.  All of his blood work and urinalysis came back normal.  We then ran the more specific thyroid test and that came back normal too.  Thinking this might be a side effect of his medicine we decided to try taking him off it.  Within 24 hours of no pill he didn't want to eat, so I thought I try giving the pill every other day and gave him one that night.  In the morning he felt better and ate all his meals that day.  Skipped the pill that night and by the morning he was throwing up.  I could also tell he was starting to itch. 

This was Friday, so back to the vet we went because she said to bring him in for a shot if he was itching.  I also wanted to talk about what could be going on.  She was feeling his belly when I mentioned that since our last visit I wondered if he might have a tumor.  She said she was now wondering the same thing, or inflammatory bowel disease.  She thought his GI tract felt thickened.  An x-ray showed that most of his GI tract was thickened.  An ultrasound showed that it didn't look like inflammatory bowel disease, but more like a gastrointestinal cancer.

After shedding some tears, Palbo and I went home.  He's back on daily cyclosporine because he does better on it, and she said it could be helping because it's an immune suppressant like chemotherapy and steroids.  We're waiting to hear from an oncologist about other possible medications.  Although he might not do well with other treatments because he already struggles with his allergies/immune system.  Surgery is not an option because it's not really a tumor, it's spread throughout.

Pablo hanging out in his heated bed this weekend.

Pablo is eating, drinking, and cleaning himself, but he can't eat as large of portions so I'm feeding him more often.  His energy is low, but he's still getting around and very happy for lovin' and extra yummy food.  I'm giving him about 100 ml of subcutaneous fluids a day to make sure he's hydrated and I think it helps him feel better.  He's not in pain.  He's only 10 years old, which seems too young for something like this.

Brothers II

 Today was a snowy spring Saturday.  The brothers of the house were very cuddly today.

And a sister, who was cuddly with me.  :-)

Astro's Open Standard and Jumpers Titles

 It's been awhile since this happened, but it was a pretty big deal so I thought I should share it.  The last weekend in October 2013 Astro earned his Open Standard and Jumpers with Weaves titles.  I was super happy and proud of him.  Astro and I are learning agility together and I couldn't ask for a better partner.

 Astro was also very happy about getting his picture taken with the judge for his Open Standard title.  We finished our Open Standard title Saturday morning with a really nice run.

 He wanted to make sure that Judge Dan Butcher knew how much we appreciated him.  :-)

This is our Jumpers run from Saturday.  It was our second qualifying Open Jumpers run.  Pardon my shrill voice, I was a little nervous.

 

 On Sunday we had our third qualifying run and finished our Open Jumpers with Weaves title.  It was a great run with lots of turns that he nailed.  I thought it was smoother that our run on Saturday.

We are working on on our Excellent titles now and have also started entering Time 2 Beat and FAST.  Astro loves Time 2 Beat because the courses are designed to be open and fast.  When I decided to try agility I didn't really know how it would turn out because Zephyr and Astro are my first dogs, so of course I was/am learning along the way.  I'm so happy that we've made it this far.  The Excellent level courses have been really challenging.  The courses are harder and there is much less room for error.  But, it's a lot of fun.  So far Astro has one Excellent Standard qualifying run and two Excellent Jumpers with Weaves qualifying runs.