"It is just plain cold here, but Brenna LOVES it! I would expect the way things are going we will have a significant snowfall sometime this winter. So I should get some good snow pictures! Can't wait to see how Precious the cat handles snow.
Boy have the two of them come a long way. On Precious's first night in the house she had curled up to sleep on our bed and Brenna was also on the bed and Brenna shifted a bit and her leg nudged Precious. Precious hauled off and literally sunk her teeth into Brenna's leg and bit the fire out of her! Brenna lept in the air and was just about to take Precious's head off with one snap of her jaw when I quickly snatched Brenna back and calmed her down! Now look at the attached picture. Precious was asleep and Brenna rolled over and laid her head on Precious's butt and slept that way for quite a while!"
Monday, December 8, 2008
"This past year someone who hadn't seen Brenna in a long time commented that it looked as if her ears were graying. I had noticed this, but had commented to them that it wasn't probably gray hair but bleached hair, as she is quite the sun dog and loves to bask in the sun no matter what window she has to lay in front of! But then this weekend we had to give her a hair cut because she was getting sooooo shaggy. We had let her winter coat grow in good because it has been so bitterly cold here. Nearly every morning walk has involved temps in the mid to low 20's for several weeks now! But she had too much fur and you could tell she was getting miserable inside, so we cut her hair. And in doing so when Michelle trimmed her ears down, underneath all that liver was almost all gray! We were shocked for several minutes thinking that maybe our 5 year old girl may indeed be a lot older.
This may still be the case that she is older. I remember you saying that her blood work seemed to indicate she might have been older when in the rescue homes. Michelle remembers that around the age of 10 Sparky seemed to slow down overnight. And that is what I seem to possibly be noticing in Brenna. Just in the past few weeks she no longer wants to go on our long walks anymore. I keep using the excuse (and this may be the real reason) that it is all because deer hunting season was in full swing and we couldn't even get out of our neighborhood before a gun shot or two would ring out and Brenna would literally shake in her boots and drag me back home. But now we haven't had many gun shots, and in fact it is now bow season, so there shouldn't be any for a while, but still this past week I can't get her to walk for more than 10 minutes. She loves to run and play, but only in our neighborhood. But she used to love nothing more than our between 2 to 3.5 mile walks every single morning only a month ago?
Also, I notice that when she is laying on the bed and stands up you hear a large amount of snap crackle and pop as her joints ring out. I was just commenting to Michelle that I wonder if I should already be giving her glucosomine? If so, how much and how do I give it to her, and do I give her what I am getting from Wal-Mart that I am already using?
Anyway, I am not unrealistic to think Brenna won't ever age! It just seems that the last part of this year we have seen her turn "old" overnight?
On the flip side of that, today she got to say high to Forrest the deer again, and she is sleeping away right now because Duke came over and played with her for about a half hour in our back yard."
Friday, December 19, 2008
"I have been sooooooo busy processing data from my asteroid observation last week. I set a new World Record in the number of observations made by a single person measuring an asteroid. I set up 14 unattented stations near Oklahoma City and all 14 got a measurement of asteroid (135) Hertha! There will likely be articles and such written about it.
You will be verrrrrrry happy to know Brenna is just fine and we have been one several of out 2 and 3.5 mile walks the past week. Indeed, once hunting season was over and once a few weeks went by where she didn't hear gunshots any more she felt "safe" to leave the neighborhood again. That is all it was (as I hoped and suspected). I don't know if it is the bad economy, but this year's hunting season was very loud and active. I think more people were out this year trying to get food for their freezer. You could not be outside for more than 5 minutes DAY or NIGHT without hearing a gunshot within ear shot. Brenna was just really upset about the whole thing and just developed a complex and did not want to leave the 6 acres of the circle around our house. She is now playing and walking very happily as it is now bow season, no loud BANGS!
We do have a regular physical set up for the first of the year for her shots and such and we will get them to test her thyroid anyway and ask them about glucosamine. But she is quite her normal peppy puppy self now!!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from us all, and we just thank our lucky stars still everyday for you and Heather (and the whole ESRA org) fro making our lives so complete with Brenna!"
"I need to give you an update from Brenna. After our regular annual physical and rabies shots last month the vet noticed Brenna had a fractured tooth and two loose front teeth. He recommended that we bring her in for a full fledged dental workover, at which point they would also X-ray her teeth to see how much bone loss she has, essentially how old she might be. He determined exactly what I suspected, she is around 10 years old. Given her slowdown the past 6 months I suspected this, that she was likely older than we thought. Springers have a really high active level and tend to "hold" their age well up until about 10 years old based on our many years of experience with them.
But this is really no big problem, it just means we have to look at treating her different. We have bought a row of ottomans to go in front of our bed so that she has "steps" now to get on and off our bed. This small task was starting to be a problem with her the past few months anyway, so it is something we needed to do. We have started her on glucosamine and I only wish I had done it a few years ago when I had the intuition that I should have.
But anyway our special girl had to have five teeth pulled... BUT... they were smaller insignificant teeth! The vet noted that the enamel on her teeth were very well kept and that our teeth brushing and almost daily (petite) greenies had certainly saved all of her major teeth. She did not (but barely) lose any molars or K9s. The two loose front teeth had almost 70% bone loss and were basically just dangling in her gums. They pulled the cracked tooth, and then two others that had over 60% bone loss. But the others had under 50% bone loss which is his criteria for pulling. Instead he cored out the infectious and void areas and filled it with a new type of gel that allows almost 90% recovery of bone in previous tests he has done. So Brenna (if we continue caring for her teeth) will likely keep her teeth the rest of her life!
They did a complete blood workup on her as well. She is very healthy with the only parameter out of whack being her EOS (not sure what that is) but it was barely high and he said it had to do with allergy sensitivity.
Anyway, the girls is on the mend now and can't play with any hard toy for 2 weeks... that includes her tennis balls! This will be hard for her and us!! But she just started eating today, and with a vengeance, and got to even run and play with Morgan today. She has had a smile on her face since about 2PM, so the girl is almost back to her normal self.
Take care and thought I'd share. Feel free to pass this on to whoever you think might want to know.
Hope you had a Happy Valentines Day from Brenna and Precious! And it was interesting to see that Precious was very upset when Brenna was gone all day yesterday for the surgery. She was visibly depressed and was searching high and low for her and would come and look at me as if to say "Hey, where did your shadow (Brenna) go?!" They are very attached to each other, and Precious gave Brenna kisses all over once she got home and even curled up next to her as if realizing she did not feel well."
Saturday, March 14, 2009
"Howdey! As you can see by the attached picture of Brenna bounding through the 9 inches of snow we got, she is doing quite well and was QUICKLY back to herself after her dental procedure. She was so lucky, as the daily petite Greenie and the teeth brushing saved her from bad teeth leading to a major recovery problem! She ended up only losing 5 teeth, none of which were major molars or K9s, so she still has a mouth full of her most important teeth!
We only had to give her pain meds the first two days. Once I realized she was healing rapidly I held off giving her regular 4 hour dose to see what would happen. She immediately had tons of energy once the meds wore off! Of course, it would come in spurts. She would run around the neighborhood like she was a teenager, but then get home and crash for many hours, followed by another spurt, followed by crashing. She did this a few days, but by about the 4th or 5th day after it was everything we could do to hide her toys and sticks and balls (so she couldn't chew on anything on account of her stitches in her gums). I believe at one point she thought we were punishing her or that we had suddenly turned mean! She had found a stick in the backyard around the 3rd or 4th day and I had to take it away from her and if you could have seen the hurt look in her eyes! I kid you not, she literally stomped away in disdain and you could tell that she was spitting mad at me. I felt so bad, but of course it had to be taken away from her.
All that is a distant memory now. She got to feeling so much better that Michelle and I both realize that her teeth may have been bothering her for a while and we did not know. But we take care of her different now. Things with her make a lot more sense now that we know she is likely 10 years old. That's why she has really struggled with weight despite us cutting her portions, why she is so slow to get up in the evenings now and doesn't like to walk three miles in the morning anymore (although we are still getting our 2 mile walks in about 3 times a week), etc. We also bought about 5 little storage containers and lined them up in front of our bed so that Brenna now has steps she get on and off of our bed. This I can tell she is thankful to have.
She started senior food now and I try to slightly wet her hard food so that it is easier for her to chew. I started her on glucosamine just prior to the procedure and then stopped during the time she was on meds. I need to start her back on that now. What signs do I look for that glucosamine is not agreeing with her? She never had any diarrhea, that was good. But I don't know what other signs to look for if it isn't agreeing with her body.
She is still the socialite of the neighborhood. If there's one thing I am so happy to see and so happy to help her do, that is socialize with other animals on a daily basis. She now has 5 regular dog buddies that either come visit her or she sees them through the course of any given day. All the people in the neighborhood love her as well and they often let her run freely inside their homes. She has got quite the life!!
Anyway, our gray eared girl is doing great for a 10 year old!! She is in very good shape, and as long as I can keep her active (with this country living) she should continue to be. Our only sadness is knowing that she is older means we have less years with her than we thought we would! That's OK, we will simply love her every minute we have her!!!"