Everyone cross your fingers!

Today Tycho had his surgical consult at Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Langley. My dad and I took him out to his appointment, and we met with Dr. Geoffrey Hutchinson for over 2 hours. He answered all of our questions and explained all the benefits of the new hip joint model that they will be using for this surgery. After meeting with the doctor a lot of my fears of the unknown went away. The doctor was very experienced and extremely knowledgeable. And if that wasn't enough, the man who designed the hip joint, not to mention numerous other human and dog joints, will be flying in from Zurich for the first two cases of surgery that Dr. Hutchinson will be performing. All sounds good right! Well here is the catch, they only need 2 dogs for this study. That is 2 dogs that will get the amazing discounted rate for surgery. We're talking $2500 instead of $7000! Before today I thought that there were no other dogs in the running for a spot, but it turns out that Dr. Hutchinson is evaluating a few other dogs for this study, and will choose the two best candidates for the study. Everyone please cross your fingers for Tycho as it will be a great opportunity if he gets chosen.

On a side note we confirmed Tycho's diagnosis of Addison's disease last week and he is now being treated with prednisone. Since being on the pred he is without a doubt a new dog. The dog who refused to walk more than a couple blocks now pulls on his walks and goes for over an hour very happily. His energy level is higher than it has been in over a year and he is doing great. Addison's disease does create a higher anesthetic risk for Tycho, but if properly treated he should do fine in surgery.

Just so Kepler doesn't feel forgotten about I should tell everyone that he is heading to Hope tomorrow for his herding instinct test. I am very excited to see what this so-called Border Collie mix does with sheep. He is 5 and a half months now and I think he is ready to play with the sheep!

Look how grown-up

Sad announcement, Kepler's friend Salt broke his femur a couple weeks ago, he is now recovering very well, but the boys can't understand why we won't let them play together anymore

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw him in his kennel like this, he lay like this for hours!

Turns out he might just be a German Shepherd!

On Friday Tycho had an ultrasound. His recent blood work showed some concerns for his kidneys and liver so I wanted to make sure everything looked ok before he undergoes his total hip replacement surgery (hopefully next month!). Thankfully his kidneys and liver looked good on ultrasound, but the big surprise was that the radiologist could not find his adrenal glands. Well she found something on one side that looked like a very small, misshapen adrenal gland, but nothing on the other side. This indicates he might have Addison's disease, a blood test will confirm or deny this diagnosis next week. If he does have Addison's disease it could explain a lot of Tycho's symptoms, including stunted growth! Thats right, my little Corgi Shepherd might not be a corgi afterall. Maybe he is just a shepherd that was stunted in growth during development. It could also explain his bad skin and coat, vomiting episodes, lethargy, muscle waste and a host of other things that have plagued my poor boy. I don't know a lot about Addison's yet, but I've been doing a lot of research since Friday.

Some of my token favorite Tycho photos for today!

Puppy Tyke (definitely a German Shepherd)

Zeus and Tycho

He's often goofy...

...more goofy

...but occasionally handsome