Question: Why would you routinely do dog blood work on young and seemingly healthy dogs? Answer: Because sometimes you find things and can catch them before the medical issue gets worse. This appears to be the case with Clover. We did routine blood work at the end of February, and we’ve been on a medical mystery tour ever since. She does not seem sick at all, so that keeps our worry on simmer (not boil), but it’s still quite weird.
In the last 9 months or so, we’ve seen a couple things in Clover’s body that we wanted to address right away. We’re doing physical therapy or canine rehabilitation (under the direction of our rehab / chiropractic veterinarian) to build Clover’s strength and flexibility to prevent injuries while she is playing agility. Check out the video of our current preventive therapy work. We’re calling it “pre-habilitation.”
A long time ago, I gave up walking two dogs at once. I stopped even trying after our (late) Penelope Grace and our (late) Cody got their leashes so tangled up around my legs that I could not walk. Over the summer, however, I decided to try walking Clover and Tori at the same time. It worked out better than expected. I’m not saying it’s the prettiest or most coordinated thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s not half bad — and often kind of fun.
Today, we celebrate the second anniversary of Clover’s adoption — Happy Gotcha Day! It’s hard to believe we’ve been Best Friends for 2 whole years. In case you missed the AMAZING story of Clover’s adoption all the way from Virginia to Colorado, revisit that happy story now! Or, if you wonder how Clover got her…
Over the holiday weekend, I drove Clover 195 miles round-trip to do another herding instinct test. We tested her the first time in June 2015, just after she turned 1. This time — maybe thanks to more maturity — it went quite a bit better in several ways. The raw video file added up to 1.5 GB. Yikes! So, I edited it down to a few highlights.
Everything is a bit of a blur when you’re raising two puppies at the same time, especially two border collie puppies who are just 13 months apart. In the ideal world, I would have had all or most of Clover’s basic training done before we got another puppy, but that’s not how things worked out. So, I’m sitting here with Clover now 2 years old and Tori 1 year old, and I’m taking stock of where we are now on the dog training front. Let’s just say I’ve not reached my goals, and I’m feeling rather bummed about it. Warning — long post ahead.
Friday, May 27, 2016, is Clover’s 2nd birthday. How crazy is that? Seems like just yesterday she was a wee-one. Just like I did for the 1st anniversary of Clover’s adoption, I made a 2-minute tribute video that chronicles her second year of life. Most notably the addition of a baby sister, Tori. In many ways, this video is as much a tale of their puppy-soul-sister status as it is a celebration of Clover’s birthday.
I didn’t want to say anything until I knew what was what, but Clover had some tests done last week, and Tori is having surgery this Friday, May 13. Details just ahead.
The same day we had Clover spayed, I asked our veterinary hospital to run genetic tests too. My primary goal was to learn Clover’s MDR1 status (multi-drug sensitivity gene). Depending upon the genetic test you choose, you can also find out your dog’s breed heritage and whether or not your dog tests positive for other kinds of disease-causing genetic markers. The good news is that Clover is indeed 100% border collie (cute family tree graphic ahead), and she tested NEGATIVE for all 90 genetic markers. The bad news is that the testing company won’t tell me what all 90 of those markers are, which makes me really crabby.
When it came time to spay Clover, after letting her go through one heat cycle and waiting for her extremely LONG false pregnancy to end, I had a LOT of questions about a traditional spay versus other surgical options. I know that seems silly considering that I’ve had dogs my whole life and write professionally about veterinary medicine, but I had NOT had to have a dog spayed since 1990 (because Lilly was spayed prior to our adoption), and I didn’t know how much had changed. I wanted to make a good decision.
