Thyroid

Well, Skye had another thyroid test. The T4 is a little higher at 21, but still well below the top half range that a young dog should be. After a chat with Mark, he agreed to put her on a trial of Soloxin for a couple of months. So she is now on 0.3mg a day (that's less than Jesse who is on 0.5mg).

Skye's aggression issues were well under control and not a problem at all anymore at home, but in new more stressful situations, she can still be quite scary... e.g. in training school with a new dog, at Karen's (where she was over the week-end) etc. So we will see how she gets on.

She has been on Soloxin since Monday evening and she hasn't had any growls (other than her usual "chatty" growls) since then... probably just coincidence, but nonetheless encouraging.

Just a picture

We had a lovely walk in the country park today - finally it has dried out a bit and the dogs are not covered in mud anymore when we get home.

Some pictures

This morning

Under the bed LOL

It's one of her favourite spots



And some pictures I took on a walk a couple of week ago when we had quite a bit of snow. It was beautiful!

 

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, SKYE

I can't believe my naughty little girl is already 2 years old, but it's true! Unfortunately we didn't have much of a chance to celebrate. It is lovely to see how far Skye has come and she is such a joy to be with now! I love you sooooooooo much, Skye-girl. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Some udpates - major improvement with bones

I thought I'd risk giving the guys a bone to clean teeth today. Last time I did this it was a major disaster due to Skye's extreme guarding where she didn't even let ME within any reasonable distance; let alone the other dogs. I had to trick her to get the bone away from her and she was very guardy and growly for many hours afterwads. Well, today, she still did a good mean growl at the dogs walking past at a few yards, but she did let them walk past now AND once she had finished with the bone, she allowed me to exchange her bone for a few treats after a bit of convincing! Hurray! I am over the moon as a bone is the highest value item she guards and she wouldn't let anyone near her at all hence why they haven't had bones for a long time! But my girl has come a long way and now we are finally breaking boundaries down with this last and biggest issue of her.


For the last couple of weeks, I have also been going to agility again now that the obedience season is mostly over. Skye is doing brilliantly in agility and really enjoying it. She is confident on all the obstacles, does a pretty good (and almost independent) weave now and her attention is much improved. Not bad for a crazy thing that has only done a handful of sessions I reckon. She does some bits and pieces with Elke in Advanced, and I do Intermediate with her to give her more 1-2-1 practice! She is a natural!

Stuff...

First of all, antibody test came back a while ago. No antibodies, so that's no autoimmune thyroiditis. Mark wants to re-test due to the less than optimal results. I sent results to Jean Dodds too and she confirms this. So I'll retest her thyroid in about 6 months. It's not urgent, as her aggression issues are just fine.

Secondly, Skye is generally doing ok. Sitting room is usually all in one piece now when both Emily come in as well as me. House training still dodgy when it is wet outside, otherwise quite good now.

She has taken to breaking out of the car crates though when I walk away at obedience shows... She'd then sit in the front seat waiting for me... If I was sure she didn't touch anything, I'd leave her there, but I can't be sure and I don't want to come back to a wrecked, undrivable car - though I have to say the three times this has happened, she hasn't touched anything.
I have now cabletied the back crate (the strong one) so hopefully that'll keep her in place. LOL

New walk and test results

TEST RESULTS: On Friday, we got the first set of test results back, which is T4, freeT4 and TSH. T4 is on 17, which is very close to the lower end of normal... so it looks like Skye might also be hypothyroid. Just waiting for the second half of the results which will tell us whether she has antibodies or not. NEW WALK: Today Emily came with Lucas again to do some more toddler socialising! And it went really well and was a good improvement from last time. Dylan was totally happy and asleep most of the time (tired from vets and a walk afterwards), Flash still worried occasionally but overall much happier, Jesse was amazing and invited Lucas to play several time by play bowing at him (though sometimes realising that he was too brave and backing off a bit then LOL) and Skye pretty confident, but needs to learn more not to take Lucas' toys. We were really pleased. Afterwards I took Skye and Jesse to South Norwood Lakes walking with Emily up there. It was the first time I took them to that park and they loved it. They are now nice and tired. I did a bit of training there too and they responded very well to everything I asked. And I have to say I was also well pleased with their road walking as there was very little pulling. Good little spangles, they were. :-)