Friday, May 30, 2014

Flatcoat National

Gorgeous head shot of Lync taken at 8 months of age by Andy Hurly

Lync is now in Oregon with Judy at the American Flatcoated Retriever National Specialty!
While I miss him terribly I am so excited for him to have this opportunity to be shown there.  I have rented the 2 days when he will be showing from the official videographer.

On Tuesday Lync will be competing in the Puppy Sweepstakes and on Wednesday he is in the Regular Classes at the National.  He just turned 9 months old on May 24 so he is at the bottom end of the 9-12 month class. 

Blazingstar Kennels will be well represented at these Nationals.  Liz will not only have Lync there but 2 of his littermates, Higgs and Juno, are entered as well.  Lync's mom Kona is entered,  Tinbie, and Larkin are entered,  Cava was entered but ended up ripping her toe nail last week so sadly she has to stay home.  Also entered is Blue who is owned by Michele who lives in Edmonton and is Tinbie's only son,  plus Flip who is owned by Tom in Montana and co owned with Liz!

Good Luck to Everyone!!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Joanne

Just returned home from my trip to Sherwood Park to attend my niece Adrienne's graduation, I have posted pictures and videos on my Facebook page so I won't bore you again lol

While there my sister Joanne was supposed to receive her final chemo treatment.  When she arrived she found out her blood count was too low to do it, instead she received a blood transfusion.  It's so hard , happy one minute and sad and worried the next.  Poor Joanne, my heart just aches for her,  it scares me so much and makes me so mad I could just scream

Monday, May 19, 2014

Updates !

TATE,
Tate has not had another seizure thankfully.  I am now thinking it was a stroke.  I talked with his breeder and she has had 2 of her older Collies do the same thing, she called them strokes.  She said they eventually become closer together , and last longer.
He is sleeping way way more, and way more soundly.  That of course is to be expected as he is pretty deaf.  This morning I tried to gently wake him to go outside, I tried blowing on his ears, then tickling his ears, then patting his muzzle and head, I finally had to give him a shake to wake him!  I wish I could sleep that soundly !  He still loves to go on his walks, even though he is very slow we still walk up to the Park and back and he enjoys it totally, moving is good for him I think.

It upsets me to see him having difficulty going up and down the stairs, He is better going down then up, it sometimes takes him a few attempts to get going.  I refuse to stop him from going downstairs, he loves to sleep down there , whatever Tate wants.....

He is LOVING his homemade meals,  today he is having egg noodles, peas, and tuna.

I leave on Wednesday for Sherwood Park, my niece is graduating.  I think Tate will be very excited to see my Debra, Aaron, Adrienne and  golden retriever cousins Shane and Sawyer, he hasn't seen them in about 2 years!

Tate and I waiting to go into the ring at the Collie National in March

KORT,
Kort is slowing down a bit and that makes me so sad.  It seems like yesterday that I brought him home, now he is 6 and all mature.  I can see his Sponylosis is causing him some problems now, he loves to run with Lync, but he can only manage to do that once a week, after that he just kind of gallops a bit but doesn't flat out run.  He is still playing Scenthurdle, but I can see a difference in the way he jumps, both his back feet are together , he has lost some speed as well.   However he enjoys it sooo much so we will continue for a bit, I do feel however that he may need to retire in the near future unfortunately.

He has been eating a Raw diet for a couple of months now and doing extremely well!!! I am so thrilled!  Kort loves Raw food.  If you remember I tried it a couple of years ago with no success, his diarrhea was worse then ever, but this time it is going very well!  His coat is lush and bigger then it's ever been.  He still has a few bouts of soft stools now and then but for the most part they are formed.  Kort will always have a touchy tummy so I just need to watch. 

I am thrilled to death to be invited to do team obedience with Kort !!!! There is no jumping involved so it will be perfect, and Kort will feel like he has something to do now and I will be so happy to back in the ring doing what I love with my Korty ♥  I think our first trial will be in August at Spruce Meadows, so fun!!

Kort at Keho Lake yesterday

LYNC,
Lync is growing up beautifully!  Yesterday he swam for the very first time!  It was awesome and so fun to watch him go out and retrieve bumpers.  At times he would grab the end, or the rope , and "help" Maize bring the bumper back.  It was so cute, and what better way to learn how to retrieve then watching other Flatcoats do the same thing?

Lync will be going to Judy's tomorrow night after supper.  She owns Lync's mom.  She is looking after him for the week while I am in Sherwood Park, on May 26 they  leave for Oregon to go to the American Flatcoat National! Lync is showing in the 9-12 month class in both the Sweepstakes and the Regular classes.  Unfortunately he just turns 9 months on May 24 so he will be at the very bottom of the class.  I am excited he is going and people can see him and see how handsome he is!!! A class placement would be a bonus though :)
After the National Judy is going to visit with her sister for a week, so all in all I won't see Lync for 3 weeks!!! omg!! I will miss him like crazy,  man I love this dog!

Lync at Keho Lake yesterday with his friend Maize

So there you have it, updates from the last little bit, hopefully I will get back into the blogging swing from  now on.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Kortie

On Sunday May 4 2014 Kort turned 6!!!

I have never missed a blog post for my boys Birthday's before and I feel bad.  He got special love and had Happy Birthday sang to him, as well as having the honour of being called Birthday Boy all day, I think he was pretty happy :)

I made a collage of some of Kort's littermates, he was from a litter of 11 , I only know of 5 others, Duffy, Celine, Gavin Callie and Marley.  I have never met Marley, but got pictures of him from a friends FB page, as the friend, is friends, with Marleys dad, does that make sense !

~TOP~ left to right Kort, Duffy Kort, Celine, Duffy ~ MIDDLE~ Gavin, Celine, Duffy, Duffy ~BOTTOM~ Marley, Callie, Kort, Kort, Celine, Marley, Celine


The day I went to bring Kort home
I loved him
very much ♥


Monday, May 5, 2014

Tate


Tate on his 12th Birthday, April 11 2014

On Thursday May 1 2014 Tate had a seizure.

I have been trying to write this post ever since, everyday I do a bit more.  It is painful to write about, it means I have to re live it, and that is very difficult.

On Thursday morning I heard a noise at 6:30 am, I am a very light sleeper, but I am also very hyper aware of when the dogs make noise.  I jumped out of bed in a flash and saw Tate on the 3rd last step going down the stairs to the door.  I didn't think anything about it as he has gotten himself stuck before, his legs don't always work the way he wants now so at times he has needed some help from me.  I went and helped him down the remaining steps and let him outside.  He walked off the cement block outside the door and turned left, instead of right to go into the back yard.
As I watched he began to circle, he just went around and around so I knew something wasn't right, I grabbed my jacket and went outside to him,  I touched the side of his neck and started to lead him toward the yard.  He bumped into the patio chair as we went by it, when we reached the yard I could see he was off balance, he was stumbling , circling  , and whining.  I tried then to get him back into the house but he fought me, he kept trying to pull his head out of my hands,  he didn't  know it was me, he was trance like.  I ran back inside and grabbed a leash.  I had to pull and push him back toward the house.  The whole time he fought back, he couldn't see and was disoriented.  When I got to the cement step I had to lift him up, his legs weren't working right, I didn't even notice if my chest hurt at that point.  I got him back into the porch, we have a split level house so there are 7 steps going up and 7 steps going down off the porch.  I happened to have my ex pen in the porch as I have been using it to block the dogs while the contractors have been going in and out of the house during the renovations.  I blocked off the downstairs steps and ran upstairs to get the phone.  Tate was just doing circles, falling and whining in the porch.  I sat on the floor , I tried to comfort him, but I was crying , I kept telling him I didn't know what to do, and I didn't, I have never felt so helpless.  I called Amanda, I didn't want to be alone.  Tate just kept whining and spinning , the entire episode lasted about a half hour, maybe 45 minutes. 

When the episode finally stopped , I could tell that Tate was aware of me again, he could see me, with his left eye, the right one was still shut.  He was so exhausted , he laid down right there and fell asleep with his head in my hands. 
By now it was 8 am and Brad came home from work, I told Brad to keep an eye on Tate so I could go upstairs to make a vet appointment.

Do you ever notice when you have an emergency things never go right?  My vet was not in the clinic until 2 that afternoon.  I called their sister clinic as I had used them last September when Tate had a different episode.  There was a vet at that clinic that I liked but she wasn't back in the clinic until Monday.  Tate was still sleeping so I figured there would be no problem waiting until 2 to see Dr Carla.  Tate slept all day . When it was time to go I was able to convince him to come down the stairs but I had to lift him into the van.  I still was not thinking, or noticing for that matter, that it was probably not the best idea for me to be lifting a 73 pound dog by myself.

When we got to the clinic the first thing Carla said was this was not a Vestibular Episode, which is what I thought it was and what I had told the technician  She did an examination, checked his eyes, he had no blink response in his right eye at all, that was the eye that was completely closed during his seizure. We took blood and ran a complete blood profile, Carla said she would have a good idea from what the blood showed as to what was happening.  For instance if glucose was off, or red blood cells were up, that would indicate one thing, another thing would point to cancer.  Of course I can't remember all that technical stuff.

I got Tate home and he was able to walk up the stairs to the livingroom, he laid down and went to sleep.
When Carla called she said his bloodwork was perfect, not one thing was wrong with it, that was great news, the bad news was that because his bloodwork was good it meant his seizure was due to a problem with his central nervous system, ie his brain :(
The most likely cause , a tumor.  I did a bit of research after on my own and I think if it is a tumor it is a Meningioma. These occur in dogs over the age of 8 and are very common in Collies.   I could go and get a CT scan done on him, then I would know for sure what it is, how big it is, and where it is, but he would have to be put under general anesthetic, and really, what good would it do me?  The end result will remain the same,  Tate is dieing, whether it will be fast or slow we will find out eventually.

That night Tate seemed to get worse, he no longer could do the stairs, his legs were just stiff, it was like his brain had stopped communicating with his body, he just couldn't figure out how to move his legs.  I had to put his collar on and lift/drag him down , and then do the same to get him back up.  The next day I was able to borrow Wendy's harness that she had for her dog, that was such a big help, but still very difficult to do by myself.  I had decided to buy not only the front end harness but one that goes on the back end as well, that was on Friday morning.
At supper time Friday night I moved the gate that was blocking the stairs to get ready to take Tate out for a potty break, I moved it and he just strolls over and walks down the stairs without blinking an eye!! Omg it was freaking amazing! He walked outside , did what he needed to do, came in and walked back up the stairs!  Today is Monday and he is still having no trouble at all!  My breeder also confirmed that this is what happened with her dogs that were having strokes, after a day or so they basically returned to normal, until the next stroke.

I am thrilled that Tate is able to do most everything himself again but I am not living with false hope, I know there will be a next time .  My vet has said we should just take it by seasons, so right now we are concentrating on getting him through the summer, then we will worry about the fall, I like that, 1 season at a time.

Last night I took Tate for a short walk up the street and down the back lane, he enjoyed that, just us two.

I suppose right now I am numb,  I have cried enough to last me a lifetime.  Each night Tate gets extra hugs, kisses and love.  My vet warned me that if it is indeed a tumor/cyst there is always a possibility of it bursting , killing him instantly.

I have no regrets, none at all.  Tate has had a wonderful life, he owes me nothing.  I want him to stay with me forever, but of course he can't,  so right now I thank God for everyday I do have with him ♥

Tate on his 12th Birthday, April 11 2014