Teddy Stewart

Teddy Stewart, that makes me chuckle when I see my dogs named written out like that. My vet doesn't do it, but the specialist veterinary hospital where Teddy went to see the cardiologist does.

We got the report from the cardiologist last week. I had to call back to get the low sodium food list. The cardiologist said it was a grade 3 heart murmur but the report says grade 3-4. The cardiologist did say Teddy could be stable for quite some time before heart failure. Even after he has heart failure, he could have a good quality of life for 6 to 18 months with additional medications.

They added another medication and increased the dosage of the other two that Teddy was already taking. Teddy is now on 5 pills a day; he does seem more active and there's definitely less coughing. I'll also be changing his food to one lower in sodium.

The list the hospital gave me had a large selection of low sodium food choices but the majority had chicken as the protein and Teddy is allergic or at least sensitive to chicken. Of the non prescription diets, all except for Royal Canin, were American. Teddy and Liam are currently on Acana Pacifica so I messaged Acana to see what the sodium levels were in their diets.

Acana Customer Support sent me back a list of their diets without chicken with their sodium levels. It is recommended that his diet be 90mg per 100kcal or less of sodium. Acana Pacifica is well over that but two diets: Pork with Squash and Red Meat with Healthy Grains are under that, at 68 mg and 71 mg respectively. I'll be changing Teddy over to the Acana Red Meat option to get the grains into his diet as well. 

Teddy's heart condition is the first time I've made claims where the deductible has been paid and I've gotten money from the insurance company. The deductible was paid just with the first visit to my vet to diagnose the condition with all the blood work and x-rays, so when we went to the specialist, the cost of the actual echocardiogram was covered. Now any additional tests and medications will be covered. The medications cost over $500 for two months so the insurance covers about $400 of that. While I could cover the medications, it's nice not to have that big bill every couple months. In a little over a week, Teddy will have some other blood work and it's recommended that he have another echocardiogram in 4 to 6 months. A friend said you never really want to win the insurance game but it is is nice not to have  to worry about making these decisions when there could be large expenses involved.  

Teddy Stewart is doing fine right now. He's more active on walks and plays more with Liam. A number of friends have told me their dogs with heart murmurs did well for years on medications. Hopefully, I'll get to take him to play in the ocean this summer and even in summers to come.

Advanced Gamblers

 

Liam and I went to an agility trial yesterday. I always say any trial where we have a Q is a good trial. They are especially good when Liam gets a Q (qualifying score). That boy tries so hard and I do think he enjoys agility.  Yesterday's trial was at a location where I know he does not like the teeter at all! Our first run was a Gamblers where you get to plan your own opening run and the Main Gamble was the A-frame and two jumps so I decided we would not even try to do the teeter or the dog walk.  The dog walk has the same angle as the teeter so dogs often think it might be the teeter. 

I planned our opening going up the right hand side of the ring. We did the 4 point jump, the tunnel to the left, back again through the tunnel to the 4 point jump. I had intended to push Liam to the backside of the jump so he would be jumping towards the A-frame but he was too fast for me and took it on a slice which worked out just fine. After the A-frame, it was off to try the back mini gamble (labelled a,b,c). Liam did the tunnel, came in towards me and when I sent him back out he took the jump on the side labelled B, then he back jumped the side labelled b. You can only do an obstacle twice for points in the opening so now we couldn't get the mini gamble. In any case, I had him do the tunnel under the dog walk twice and then the buzzer for the end of the opening time went. I got him back and over the A-frame, I really didn't expect him to stay out to the first jump but he did and he also stayed out for the second jump which really surprised me. I wasn't sure we had made time as he stuttered stepped to both jumps and I wasn't even sure if I'd had stepped over the gamble line or not. The Gamble line ended at the dog walk, sometimes judges will tell you that the line goes to infinity but for this course the judge said the line ended at the dog walk so you had to treat it like a handler's box. With a handler's box, you can't cross any of the lines until the dog is past the point of faulting so for a jump, when their 4 feet are past the jump bar. I was so excited that he did the gamble that I thought I might have crossed the line while he was still jumping.

Luckily, I hadn't. Liam got a qualifying score with 25 points in the opening; he needs 16 as a Veteran dog. And he was well under the Gamble time, in fact even was he still in Specials, it still would have been a Q

Our next two runs were Standard agility runs. In the first run, the dog walk was the second obstacle. Liam didn't want to do it at all thinking it might be the teeter. The dogs can wear a flat collar now so I just put my finger in the collar and talked him over it. Our time ended before we got to the teeter so we didn't get to try that. In the second run, the teeter was the 6th obstacle. Liam again did not want to do it, so again I put my finger in his collar and coaxed him up and over. We got a round of applause when he finally did the teeter. For both Standards, the parts of the runs he did do, he did very well and he only had one jump down in all three runs. 

I'm not exactly sure how to work with him about this teeter, he does other teeters pretty well. I am going to try and weight mine so it drops faster and put a piece of plywood under the end so it bangs a bit on the drop.

But all in all, it was a good trial. We didn't have to get up too early, we were home before dinner time, the weather was good and Liam got a qualifying score. One more Advanced Gambler Q and he'll be in Masters Gamblers.