Scoop finally got a diagnosis today of his weird snurfling and sneezing, he has a creepy fungus called aspergillus. He will have to have a treatment where he is under anesthesia for about 90 minutes and he is infused with anti-fungal meds. He had his poor little nose and throat scoped today in every imaginable way as I watched the monitor and actually saw the fungal growth which was not present last time he was scoped.

This nasty fungus can actually get into the bones and so Scoop also had another xray to see that it was localized and had not gone further than the back of his nose. It hasn’t! There is still much I don’t know about this disease and the procedures for curing him. For now he can go for walks and play, but no agility. The fungus can be painful so I am also thinking it is the source of his uncomfortable jumping this past month.

This is short, gotta teach a class in 6 minutes! Here is the patient, who is now back home no worse for the wear it seems.

I hope you didn’t have to spend the day at the vet with your pup, but since mine did, I want to thank Dr. Helen Hamilton, Scoop’s internist, for all her great care and understanding as well as all her incredible knowledge and of course all those cool instruments!

Nancy

Scoop, April 2011, USDAA trial

Last night I arrived home from a weeks long adventure. Last weekend we had AKC World Team Tryouts Saturday and Sunday in Hopkins, Minnesota. The excitement was such that on Sunday my stomach was in knots all day just watching the teams compete for a spot on the TEAM! 6 Team members won their way onto the team, and 6 more will be picked this week. What stress, so many great dogs so few spots to fill. The quality of the dogs gets better every year which makes the final choices that much more difficult, but the good news is we have the depth to take great teams to France this year, and many chances for medals.

On Monday afternoon I flew to Atlanta to meet my friends Maureen Robinson & Laura Miller and was whisked away from the airport at 5 PM to the 55th floor of a law office to watch the 6 PM banding of an urban clutch of 4 falcon chicks whose families have made their nest on the top of this beautiful downtown Atlanta office building for many years. How in the world did I end up there? Maureen and Laura are great friends, Laura has a penthouse office in the building, and Maureen is a professional photographer. I just got real lucky! The Georgia Wildlife guys were there to do the banding, I took upside down videos with my new ipad2, (banding peregrines, an Ipad2 video by ME) and we all had a great time watching all the excitement. On Tuesday Maureen and I headed for her beautiful mountain farm in  North Carolina, and by Wednesday I was spending my time watching Maureen practice LONG outruns in preparation for the Blue Grass Sheep Dog Trial this week. (Maureen at Otie’s Knob, a video taken on my new Ipad2)

Wow! A month ago I was teaching in Hawaii and getting stung by man of war jelly fish on Kailua Beach, yeah that’s the beach our president takes his holidays:) I love my life. This evening was spent as many are here on the ranch. I took the dogs for a hike around the property and even though I have lived here since 1976, I never get tired of my fields and hanging with the dogs on a spring evening in the hills. This evening we had lots of nature moments. A killdeer tried to tease us with her broken wing act the entire time I was in one of the fields, yeah yeah, I see you mama kill deer, and I am not going close to the hedgerow by your nest, but keep up the performance, it is very entertaining! Then the dogs and I wandered down the front drive and scared up a big doe that sauntered off when I called the dogs back.

It looked like a full moon out there peeking behind the clouds, even though it was hardly dark and the hawks were still doing their helicopter act hanging over the edges of our cliffs looking for a bedtime snack I guess. Dead quiet out there other than the chirping birds getting ready to head off to bed. I let Scoop come for a walk with us, even though he still is bothered by something in his nose or throat or I don’t know what. He is now on antibiotics 3 times a day to see if there is some kind of infection which is causing the sneezing and hacking. If he is not perfect by Monday, (this afternoon) on Tuesday he goes back to see Dr. Helen our internist, for another scoping. Poor Scoop, poor me! Once again I am home and have time to train him and can’t. BOOGERS.

Riot and Wicked complained bitterly when I left them at the house tonight and just walked Scoop, Ace and Panic. I had already taken them for a trundle around the yard earlier today and thought they were happily resting. Not so. They busted out of the gate when the boys went in, (deaf and almost blind 14+ and 16 year old dogs are allowed these naughty priveleges) and they were rewarded for the effort by getting another short play out in the big yard. Since both of these girls have life threatening illnesses, they sort of get to call the shots, and when they want to tug and run and play they get to do so. So, my evening plans got slightly delayed but I wouldn’t have traded the opportunity for anything. It’s dark here now, the dogs are quiet, Jim is at a soccer game and I might just get off this computer and read a book.

I hope you had as lovely an evening with your pack of dogs as I had with mine.

NJG

Scoop and I spent the day at the vet on Monday while he had his nose and throat scoped to check and see if he had a foreign body caught inside. Scoop started sneezing a few days prior and this was the second visit, this one to be definitive to determine what was causing the sneezing and snurfling he was and still is doing. He had a hard time with anesthesia, vomiting going in and coming out both. I almost regretted that my internist always lets me stay with my dogs for procedures, this was all a bit much and pretty scary to watch. The cool part was watching the actual scoping of the nose on the monitor. Good news bad news, no foreign body.

So why is he sneezing, and sort of wheezing a bit when he runs hard? Allergies are suspected, or he inhaled something that bothered him and while it is gone, he is still uncomfortable. He is on benadryl for a few days and no training for him this week.  I wish that was all that is wrong with him.  He was also jumping poorly on the weekend. I was at the usdaa trial and luckily there was a masseuse and a chiropractor on hand to work on him multiple times. That was on top of the three sessions he had with Dr. Wendy throughout the week to try to find where he was uncomfortable. There was no glaring pain, just some small adjustments. So why was he knocking bars and adding steps here and there?

No answers yet, but he has a couple weeks off now to see if any small issues resolve. In the midst of all this he got his USDAA AD on the weekend. I only ran him in the standard ring, and only after the body workers to say he was not in any discomfort. But he obviously is tight somewhere, most likely up in his head neck area which is where they concentrated some of their work. He had a nice standard run both days, hitting his frames, with great weaves and nice jumping.

I still took him for regular exercise after he recovered from the procedure. The mustard is in full bloom at my house, and the dogs love to run through the deep stuff.

I am headed to Minnesota today for World Team Tryouts. I will be back next week and I hope to find that Scoop is back to his normal bubbly self, but that the snurfling is all gone!

I hope that your novice dog is sound and healthy and you are busy training instead of sitting on the bench like we are.

NJG