Canine Cancer

In my last post, I ended with the news that my female bi-black Sheltie, Ceilidh was diagnosed with a Mast Cell tumour. She had surgery on 21 January, her 7th birthday, to remove the tumour. The surgeon was able to get out the whole tumour with 2cm margins and the tumour was sent to the lab to grade the tumour. Unfortunately, although we had clean margins, the tumour was a Grade 3 tumour, the most malignant type of this cancer. In 80% of dogs the cancer will come back. The recommendation of the oncologist was to begin chemotherapy so after she had her sutures removed, we met again with Dr Bravo and decided to try Palladia. Palladia is a new drug just approved by the FDA in June 2009 for mast cell tumours in dogs. Ceilidh had her first dose of Palladia last Friday and her second today on 8 February 2010. We have to keep a watchful eye for any of the side effects. We will have a recheck with the oncologist on 19 Feb 2010. We are hopeful that this will give her the best chance for a good quality of life for whatever time we have together.

She is healing well from her surgery. We are keeping a very close eye in the area around the incision. I'll post a few pictures of Ceilidh and will keep up this blog as our journey progresses.

Rollecoaster Ride

Well again it's been quite a while since my last post so I'll have to recap the past few months.

In August, we attended the AAC National Agility Championships held right here in Ottawa. Tucker was again very consistent but even though the weather wasn't all that hot, he was going very slow by the end of the weekend. He managed to place 7th overall in his height class, 6" DD Veterans and he was never in last place. It rained for part of the weekend and Tucker nearly slid off the A-frame as it was a little slippery. He must have pulled something as since that time he has not done an A-frame in competition. I had him out to a training facility recently and we put the A-frame down to about four feet, after putting him over it on a leash a couple times, he seemed to have no problem with it at that height. I hope to get back out and see if he'll do a full height frame.

Ceilidh really surprised me at Nationals. She was quite consistent and even managed to get one of the Gambles which earned her a 7th place in that event. She ended up 17th overall just about in the middle of the pack for her height class, 10" Specials. We also acheived our other goals for 2009. She got a qualifying score in a Masters event other than Jumpers, when she got a Masters Snooker at an All Dog Sports Club trial. She also got her Expert Bronze Jumpers title this year.

Tucker also got his Expert Bronze Jumpers and is one qualifying score from his Expert Bronze Team and the Bronze Versatility Dog title. We didn't manage to get that last Q as the last two Team events that Tucker was entered in had the A-frame on both sides. I ran one with a friend as a partner so we knew going in we wouldn't Q and the other, since I had entered the draw for a partner, I had to withdraw from as that would not have been fair to the other team.

I had been thinking about getting a rescue dog but in August, I found a puppy that was available not far from Ottawa. It was a bi-black male and his picture online was just adorable. Needless to say, I ended up getting a puppy rather than an older rescue. I got Beckett on the Saturday of Labour Day weekend. My Dad had come up to visit and we were able to combine my going to pick up the puppy in Oshawa with a visit to my sister's in Kingston. Everything was going great. Labour Day Monday was beautiful and Dad and I decided to take all the dogs to the park. While playing with some other Shelties, Beckett got stepped on and his leg was broken. Dad and I spent 5 hours at Alta Vista Animal Hospital waiting for x-rays. At first they said it was just dislocated but when I went back the next week for the recheck, they found that it was indeed a clean break. Beckett ended up in a splint for nearly 6 weeks. I was very lucky through it all to have a friend who came and got him everyday as there was no way I could crate him all day.

We did a few trials in the fall and Ceilidh had some nice runs. One Masters Standard run at Morning Star, her last as a Special, saw her do tunnels layered with the dogwalk. I was really surprised that she didn't either spin or come back out under the dog walk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3So-VclzUU8

We've been on an agility hiatus since the end of Nov, our next trials were to be in March but the latest events have turned our world upside down.

On New Years Day, we went to Red Gate to practice and when I lifted Ceilidh in the car, I felt what I thought was a mat of hair. The next day, when I went to comb it out, I found that it was in fact an open sore with hair stuck to it. I got it cleaned up and took Ceilidh right over to my vets office. There, they did a needle biopsy and sent us home with antibiotics as there was some infection. The pathology report came back on Monday 4 Jan 2010; it is a mast cell tumour. And then the real rollercoaster ride began. We had blood tests done which came back normal so my vet recommended seeing the oncologist at Alta Vista. At Alta Vista, they did an ultrasound and urine analysis, both of which came back normal. Good news, as it means the cancer had not spread. Ceilidh had surgery to remove the tumour on 21 Jan 2010, her 7th birthday. The surgeon was able to get it all along with 2cm margins. Now we will wait for the pathology report and hope that it's good news and that the tumour was a Grade I tumour and that the margins are clean. That's the best chance for a recovery; dirty margins or a higher grade tumour will likely mean chemotherapy. I hope that things will go well for my little girl and that we will get a chance to have more exciting runs in the agility ring as a Veteran.

Little Beckett also had his little snip operation on the same day as Ceilidh's surgery. He started obedience classes the week before and will go to a puppy agility seminar in Feb.

So the latter half of 2009 had some real highs (Nationals) and lows (Beckett breaking his leg) and the start of 2010 has been a real emotional rollercoaster ride. And the ride isn't over yet.

Quite the Ride!!

Well this past weekend, we attended the Agility Association of Canada Ontario Regional Championship. It was the third time we have participated in Regionals but this time they were right here in Ottawa.

The weather didn't cooperate, it was cold, windy and rainy all weekend; it seemed more like March than the end of May. But luckily we did have some dry spells and most of our runs coincided with the somewhat nicer weather.

Tucker again was quite consistent. He got the first Gamble and was clear on both of his Jumpers runs but he was very slow in both of his Standard runs. In the second Standard, he was 16 seconds over time. In his second Gamble event, he only got 14 points in the opening. I certainly couldn't use the excuse that it was too hot for him this weekend. Maybe I'll have to up the value of his treats again. Overall, he didn't do as well as he has in the past, he was 6th in his height class but there were only eight dogs. Last year, he also placed 6th overall but there were 15 dogs. Anyway, he qualified for Nationals with 415 points.

The real excitement this weekend came from my little Ceilidh. We finished the day Saturday with only 155 points so while it was still mathematically possible to qualify I thought that it was very unlikely. My goal for Ceilidh going into Regionals was to score better than we had done the previous year and I tried to keep focused on that. Our first event on Sunday was the second Standard. The run went beautifully, it moved mainly to the right and I could do off side weaves which Ceilidh prefers. We approached the last contact obstacle, the teeter, and I held my breathe as I told Ceilidh to "spot"; she got it and then all that was left was just three jumps. A clear round and under time, the first Masters Standard run that Ceilidh has ever run clean in a trial. With that she racked up 103 points and we now had a fair chance of qualifying. The next run was Jumpers run which we completed getting only five faults and accumulated another 70 points. That left us needing only 22 points to qualify going into the last event, a Gamble. I planned a nice safe course for Ceilidh and she continued to get her contacts for me and accumulated 23 points in the opening. The video is of the second Jumper's run, again it was made for Ceilidh, wide open and moving mainly to the right. Thanks to Lisa Routhier for videoing a number of my runs, it is fun to actually see them from a different perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vob4BNcXg

Ceilidh qualified for Nationals with 351.37 points, the score needed is 350. But the best part of the weekend was that she performed so well. She got all of her contacts and stayed in weaves in her Standards even getting the very difficult entry from the teeter to the weaves in the first Standard. And although her first clean Master Standard did not earn her a "Q", she did come home with a 7th place ribbon in that event for 10" Specials.

The weekend was very memorable and to paraphrase the Regionals motto, I really "enjoyed the ride". Now we have some training to do to get ready for Nationals.

Bronze Award of Merit

At our last trial at Dream Fields on 18 April, Tucker got the last qualifying score he needed for his Bronze Award of Merit. That award is given for 10 Standard qualifying scores and a total of 25 qualifying scores in the Games events. Tucker already had his Games qualifying scores and needed just one Standard for the award. He also was awarded his Bronze Expert Standard, a new award just implemented by the AAC this year. Ten qualifying scores in any event gives you the Bronze expert award in that event. Three Bronze expert awards gives you a Bronze Versatility award. I'm hoping we can get the Versatility award this year. I'll upload a video of Tucker's Standard run soon.

Boom and Bust

The agility season has started off as both boom and bust. Tucker now has nine qualifying scores in 9 runs, the last Q thanks to his team partner Walter. Ceilidh, on the other hand is zero for 10, she has moments of brilliance (well, at least in my eyes) but we just can't keep it together for the whole run. It will be nice to be able to get my agility equipment out of the shed so we can practice weaves and contacts. I hope we will be able to do that soon. Not if I lived in Moncton, where today on Easter Sunday, we are having a spring snow storm. We have a trial the day after I get back home, I hope Ceilidh isn't too off the wall. Tucker should run well after having a week off.