A Kira update.

It has been a while since I posted. It has been slow on the Clover training front. We are in between classes, and I didn't have private lessons because of the forth of July weekend. Also, I didn't run Clover for a while because she was sick. She had diarrhea for a couple of days, so I let her rest for about a week.

There must have been a dog flu going around because our other dog, Kira got sick too. In fact after a couple of days of diarrhea and throwing up, we had to take her into the emergency hospital the night of July third because of dehydration. She stayed there until the next night. She seems to be better but definitely is not 100% yet.

Kira has had health problems for quite awhile. She is close to 12 years old and has had a thyroid problem since she young. She has also had a strange breathing and has been tested for laryngeal paralysis. They think she may have a mild case. About a 2 years ago, we couldn't feed her without throwing up. We finally switched her diet to a dry, low residue prescription dog food that we soak in water for the day so it is very mushy. We also have to feed her on a step stool so she is in an incline position when she eats. This helps the food go down. After she is done eating we make her sit for 10 minutes, to ensure the food stays down. This has worked and we seldom have problems any more. Although, it does take her a long time to drink. Kira also has some sort of degenerative muscle disease, so she looks very skinny and bony. This, along with the LP, we think prevents her lapping up water efficiently. This may have also helped lead to the dehydration.

Believe it or not, here is Kira's medication list.
2 2x a day pills for gas, because she gulps air when eating and drinking.
1 2x a day Benadryl to help with her allergy and aid with breathing
1 1x a day She gets prednisone to help with the muscles
1 2x a day thyroid pill

Needless to say, a whole precdure has to be followed to feed her.


Lately, she has been having some abnormal liver readings so we have added thistle to that list to help. We don't know if the test are abnormal because of all the meds or not.

However, even with all these problems, she has a good attitude and she still goes to Wake Med hospital as a therapy dog once a month. We used to take her on long, 5 mile hikes, but after many of the hikes, she acted like she had a pinched nerve, so for the last 8 months or so, we have stopped taking her on long hikes and just do the hike around the neighborhood.

Last night I ran Clover for the first time in over a week, since I didn't have any classes or go to course of the week last week. It was a jumpers course and Clover did fairly well, but she is still off on the timing of her jumps and I know that would be something that would take a lot of work to fix.

The next trial is the midnight madness trial at teamworks in 2 weeks. It is a NADAC trail and we are entered in every class.