Updates

Jamie went to the vet this morning for a check-up. It's been 10 days since they did the endoscopy and one week since the diagnosis of IBD. He got a gold star and (even better) I get to reduce his prednisone. Hurray! The poor guy is so jacked up he has not been himself. He pants, paces, can't settle and follows me around the house, staring at me with that "You will open the food canister and pour the entire contents on the floor NOW" look on his face.

But he's not vomiting, has wonderful poop (did I type that out loud?) and eats with enthusiasm. So guess living with a strung-out steroid junkie has been worth it. He'll go from 25 mg of pred twice a day to 25 mg once a day. If things are still good in two weeks, he'll go to 25 mg every other day.

It is possible he might be able to go off the pred entirely but it's equally possible he'll be on it for the rest of his life. I don't care one way or another. I just want him to be comfortable and feel good.

Just as I got to the clinic, it started freezing rain. WTF? THAT wasn't in the forecast. When we left the clinic, my windows were iced over but nothing was falling from the sky. The drive home was uneventful.

Phoenix and I have our first agility trial of the year this weekend, a 3-day in Davenport. I have to pack the van tonight, good thing I've kept a running list of things that need to go. We haven't trialed for about two months and it seems like all of our trial junk has migrated out of the van into the house to be washed or repaired or whatever and never made its way back to the van.

Questions of being "ready" and "perfect"

When a friend asked me recently how to know when she was ready to debut her dog in Novice, half a dozen answers flashed through my mind.

The first one was, “Why in the world are you asking me, the Queen of Disastrous Debuts?” Well, that’s not entirely true but let’s face it, you’re talking to the person who flunked the Heel On Leash her first time in the Novice ring with the dog who went on to get an OTCh. So, really, how important are debuts, anyway!

But she asked in all seriousness and that IS a serious question. No one wants to have their initial foray into obedience be so disappointing they never go back. No matter your goals, you want to look like you’re ready to be in the ring.

Given that you have realistically trained and proofed the exercises and can do successful (would have qualified at a trial) run-throughs in a number of different locations without cookies and toys, you should be ready to show.

Oh, if it were only that simple.

Everyone defines “ready” differently and this is where things start to get sticky. How ready do you need to be? Ready to get a 171? Ready to get a 199?

Be honest with yourself. Do your goals match your available time and resources?

My friend’s next question was, “Does your dog need to be perfect in training before you show?” This depends on your personality and your goals. The answer is going to be different for everyone but generally, no, your don't doesn't have to be perfect in training, or nobody would ever enter obedience trials — 99.9 percent of us enter knowing full well our dogs are not perfect. Yeah, there is that remaining .1 percent whose dogs ARE perfect. But I think they’re space aliens. Just kidding.

If you are an obsessive/compulsive Type A highly competitive perfection freak (and I say that in the kindest way possible) who wants to go High In Trial with a 200 the first time in the ring, yes — your dog had better be perfect in training because you’re not going to feel prepared going into the ring with anything less.

If it is truly your goal in life to have a dog who rarely makes errors in the ring, good luck with that but you’re talking to the wrong person if you want advice ‘cuz I’m totally not into that level of perfection. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just not my style.

But if your goal is to have fun with your dog in the ring and do your best and then go home and work on what needs to be improved and try it again next weekend, then no — no pre-perfection required. That is basically how I’ve finished two OTChs so I know it worked for me.

Perfection itself is a very difficult thing to pin down, regardless of the venue.

In agility, performance is essentially a pass/fail situation. The dog either hits his contacts or he doesn’t. He either makes time or he doesn’t. Sure, there are some judgment calls (Was that a fly-off or not?) but for the most part, judges’ decisions are black and white.

Obedience judging is much more subjective and there’s an entire range of points, from 170 to 200, that are considered qualifying. If three different judges were to observe the same performance, chances are they would come up with three different scores. That’s the nature of the beast. What one judge considers a forged heel position, another might feel is perfectly correct. One might deduct 2 points for a slow response on a retrieve while another might deduct 3.

You can drive yourself crazy in short order by trying to be perfect when the standards of perfection change from judge to judge.

With that in mind, most highly accomplished handlers will tell you there is no such thing as a perfect run in either obedience or agility. No matter how fast, clean and focused or no matter how high the score, most handlers can always find something they think they could have done better.

Thus, there is no perfection in the ring and “perfection” in training is not a requirement for me before I debut my dog at a new level. Not all trainers will agree with me on that, but I tend to view showing as “on the job training.” We go in the ring. We do our thing. We learn from it. We work to get better in training, then we go back in the ring and see if we’ve improved.

I’ve gotten incredible scores for performances I felt were a little lacking and I’ve gotten very disappointing scores for runs I felt were totally awesome. That’s the way the game is played. If I only showed when I could be guaranteed of brilliant, class-winning performances under judges who saw everything the same way I did, I wouldn’t show very much. Okay, I wouldn’t show ever.

Instead of focusing on things that are out of my control, such as how a judge may see our performance or who is going to win the class, I prefer to keep the focus on personal best achievement and steady improvement. It’s the journey that counts.

Remember, beautiful things take time to create.

Odds and ends

Went to the local hospital this morning to have blood drawn for a fasting lipid panel.

Key word: fasting.

My cardiologist said a 8 hour fast would be fine. Then the lab orders he gave me said not to eat anything for 12-14 hours.

Yikes.

I take my food very seriously. I'm not sure I've ever gone 12 hours without eating in my life.

But I did it! Had supper last night at 7 p.m., blood drawn at 7:30 a.m. this morning.

Don't expect that to happen again any time soon.

*****

Jamie is doing great. Thanks to the prednisone, he's hungry enough to eat the table legs. He'd never make it 12 1/2 hours without a meal.

We go back to the vet on Thursday for a progress check and re-evaluation. She should reduce the pred levels then.

Hope so, poor boy is drinking and peeing like a horse. I get up in the night to let him out and the Farmer lets him out several times during the day. Phoenix thinks getting to go out at 2 a.m. with his brother is the most totally awesome thing ever. If it were June, yeah, maybe. January? Not so much.

*****

I'm learning more about inflammatory bowel disease. The biggest thing I've learned so far is that it is different in every dog. There is no such thing as a "standard" case of IBD.

I'm hoping once Jamie gets stabilized and down to very low doses of pred (or possibly even none?), I'll be able to relax his diet restrictions to a certain degree. At the moment, he can't even have his Cosequin DS because it contains "natural beef flavor." Ditto for his HeartGuard heartworm preventive.

The heartworm preventive isn't such a big deal in January. I've dropped him off everything and will do a heartworm test in the spring, then he'll go on Revolution.

I'm looking for a joint support formula that doesn't contain any "flavorings." GlycoFlex III is currently the top contender.

*****

My club's awards banquet was held over the weekend. It was a great time, as usual. Lots of food and drink and fellowship.

Nix got awards for his GO, CDX and MX in 2010. It was a learning year for us and I'm thankful for every minute of it, even though a lot of things didn't go quite as I'd planned.

A friend of mine asked a question that I want to write about in more depth: When do I know if my dog is ready to show (in obedience)?

This kicked off a whole new train of thought about defining "ready" and does "ready" have to equal "perfect"?

Stay tuned. More to come.

It's the little things

This is the first morning in almost three weeks that I:

• Haven't been worried because my dog refused food.

• Haven't been worried because my dog was throwing up.

• Haven't been worried because my dog had diarrhea.

• Haven't been worried because my dog curled up on the couch and wouldn't move.

• Haven't called the vet to schedule an appointment.

• Haven't called the vet because my dog was vomiting blood.

• Haven't called the vet to check on prescription refills.

• Haven't called the vet to give her my dog's status report.

• Haven't called the vet to check on test results.

• Haven't called the vet to question prescription dosage.

It's the little things that matter most.

I love my old dog.

I'm glad he gets to be one.

Ya gonna eat that?

Jamie started on some pretty heavy duty prednisone last night, as well as a limited ingredient food with a single protein and carbohydrate source. Figuring out what food to give him was nearly as complicated as the IBD diagnosis itself.

The vet wanted him to eat a "novel" protein source, one he's never been exposed to before. Definitely easier said than done. At his age, he's been there, ate that.

Commercial dog food manufacturers are including a much wider variety of protein sources in their off-the-shelf formulas these days. Ten or 15 years ago, the shelves were stocked with your basic beef, chicken and lamb formula kibble. The more exotic proteins were reserved for vet-prescribed diets, apparently with good reason. Nowadays, you can find buffalo, rabbit, venison, duck and a variety of fish formulas on the shelves of any big box store or pet supply boutique.

And that was the problem. I have always subscribed to the "rotate your protein source" theory. In other words, don't feed your dog the exact same thing his entire life because that could set him up for developing a food allergy. My vets at our local clinic supported this. (I say "vets" plural because in the 23 years I've gone to our local clinic, there have probably been 5-6 different small animal vets. They come. They go. They've all been great but due to the constant staff turnover, there hasn't been a great deal of continuity in treatment over any of my dogs' lifetimes. Worth a post in itself.)

Back to Jamie's diet - he has enjoyed a variety of "people food" over the years. He ate table scraps along with his regular food. Yes! Horrors! Table scraps! (This is the dog who has never been overweight in his life.) And canned mackerel and salmon. And hard-boiled eggs. And lots of cheese and hot dogs in training. And pretty much anything else he wanted. He was a goat.

Now, after nearly 12 years, Jamie has been exposed to so many different proteins, finding a novel one is nearly impossible. His vet at the emergency clinic was understandably frustrated.

"I wish people would just pick one food and stick with it," she said. "There's absolutely no reason to switch."

Yikes. Well, too late for us.

Jamie is eating potato and venison, even though he's already been exposed to venison. We'll see how it goes. Thanks to the mega dose of pred, he would probably eat the table legs, too, if he had a chance.

Here's a pic of me and Jamie from a long time ago. A very long time ago. (Sorry it's so small, I stole it back from the ABTC Web site.)

Biopsy results are back

Jamie's stomach and intestinal biopsy results are back from Iowa State University.

He has moderate inflammatory bowel disease. Apparently, there are three stages: mild, moderate and severe.

No cancer was detected.

I am so relieved to A) have a diagnosis and B) that the diagnosis is not cancer I am practically dysfunctional at this point. I know IBD is neither curable nor pleasant but it is manageable and with care, he should be able to be comfortable and happy.

He will start on prednisone tonight, as well as a food with a single, novel protein source. This may be a little harder than the vets realize since Jamie has eaten darn near EVERYTHING in his life, one of the obvious drawbacks of feeding a variety of foods and not "being married" to any single brand or formula.

It's possible he's had this condition for quite some time but didn't show symptoms until recently. I asked the vet if it was strange that he's nearly 12 years old, has been a complete goat all his life and is just getting this now. She said not necessarily, it can happen to dogs of any age.

Live and learn.

Hug your dogs. Hug your partners. Life changes quickly.

A blast from the '80s

I am very susceptible to suggestion, so when Jennifer commented about Jamie needing leg warmers until his fur grew back . . . well . . . I just couldn't help it.


I don't know what's scarier: that I actually wore these in high school back in the '80s or that I still have them. And knew where to find them!

Cue "Flash Dance" music now.