Medical Updates

Yesterday, Reyna did our regular 4 mile walk with no trouble. I’m sure that’s because we walked before she had her morning antibiotics. Since today was a school day, walking before breakfast would have meant being out by 6am and home by shortly after 7 so that we wouldn’t have to fight the school traffic. I wasn’t really in the mood for that, so I decided we’d walk after she ate, but before it got too hot (it’s a fine line, especially when you have to work around traffic, too).

This morning went as follows: 6am yogurt, 7am breakfast and meds, 9am yogurt, 9:15 grocery store for more yogurt, and 9:45 out for our walk. Reyna made it just over a mile before she quit on me. She didn’t lay down like she did Saturday, but she was clearly miserable – lagging behind, stopping frequently, and frothing at the mouth (I swear, she’s not rabid). She wasn’t even going after passing vehicles with her usual enthusiasm. I'm going to give her the next few days off and see how she does. We'll try walking again when the temps cool off enough for us to go out later in the afternoon. I’d hate for her to take a full three weeks (or more) with no exercise, but I’m certainly not going to make her walk when she’s so uncomfortable.

On the upside, Duncan is definitely doing better. Even though Reyna didn’t want to walk, I still needed the exercise, so I took him out after bringing her home. Duncan and I walked a little over two miles, which is the farthest he's gone since he started having problems earlier this year. I kept him on the grassy shoulder and off the pavement for most of the walk, since his twist still causes damage to his pads when he’s on a hard surface. I did let him walk on the pavement some, mostly because I wanted to hear how he was hitting the ground. Even after the two miles, he wasn't dragging his rear feet. That’s a huge improvement.

The vet school called today with the results of Duncan’s blood test. His Ehrlichia titer is exactly the same as it was the first time, which means the month of Doxy was pretty much useless. Since the titer was the same, it means we didn’t treat an active infection, but we have no way of knowing if he had a low exposure years ago, or if he was fighting an active infection before we did the original test. I guess it doesn’t matter, really, since he’s doing so much better now. I was tickled at the vet, though, because he kept chattering on about what the titer might or might not mean, and how it does or doesn’t impact what type of future treatment they might or might not consider for Duncan. He went on like that for a good five minutes, and then he finally asked about Duncan.

The vet: Blah blah blah, titer, blah blah, no real way of knowing, blah blah, can’t treat what we can’t find, blah blah blah, keep an eye on him as he gets worse, blah blah blah. By the way, how is Duncan these days?

Me: Oh, he’s doing great. He’s higher on his hocks than he’s been in months, folks at our last herding session were talking about how good he looked, and he walked two miles this morning without dragging his feet.

The vet: Oh.

Me: I wish we knew what caused his troubles, but I’m just really happy that he’s doing so well.

The vet: Well, yes.

Me: Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him, and if he starts to have problems again, I’ll bring him back in for a follow up.

The vet: Um, okay. Oh, do you have to give him Rimadyl very often?

Me: Nope. He hasn’t indicated that he’s having any trouble moving around, so I’ve not bothered with the Rimdayl.

The vet: Oh. Well. Good.

I like the neuro vet, but it really was funny to hear the bewilderment in his voice.