Platelet Count Normal!

Good news that the prednisone has helped get his platelet count back into the normal range at 201K. He is to continue on the doxy until gone and continue the weaning from the prednisone until gone. Next blood test in about a month to see how things are progressing!

Prednisone

The follow-up visit this past Monday to Dr. Morey and lab work only showed marginal improvement in his platelet count. She put him on Prednisone in addition to the Doxycycline to get his platelet level up while the antibiotics do their thing.

His appetite is much better, but he seems to have some weight loss. He weighed 47 lbs on the Wednesday before the championships when he wasn't eating and then weighed in at 48 lbs Monday. I don't know that I totally trust her scale though since it's been inaccurate in the past. I may have to try and weigh him at home or brave Black Friday shoppers to use the scale at Petsmart. The next blood work will be Tuesday.

Erlichia

I know way too much information about this tick borne disease now. Zio's symptoms began the Tuesday before the championships when he didn't eat his breakfast. He coughed some clear phlegm looking stuff while I was getting ready for work too. I couldn't even coax him to take a snack. When I came home from work, he was somewhat lethargic, his eyes looked a little dull, and he was still refusing to eat anything.

We headed to the vet Wednesday morning and his red blood count was okay, fecal float was clear, temperature was normal, and he did take a snack (although it took him a few minutes to decide to eat it). Dr Morey sent the blood sample off for lab work and got the results back in the early afternoon... low platelets. She had the lab run a tick panel since the alternatives were an auto-immune problem or cancer. She called late Wednesday to confirm Erlichia. He did finally eat Wednesday evening, but it took him a while.

He started on Doxycycline that evening and she said he would probably start feel better in 48 hours. We traveled to the championships Thursday and he loved being in the lanes at Purina as they were setting up, but he skipped his meals. He would take snacks though, so I gave him enough to keep some calories in him.

We held him out of racing Friday. He finally ate his morning meal over a period of three hours, picking at it now and then. He acted like he was feeling better, but it may have been being at a tournament that had him excited. I decided to try racing him in the first race Saturday to see how he acted and he ran a 4.0 in his first match! He again picked at his morning meal, but eventually ate it. By Sunday, he was eating twice a day again. I think he ran on heart and adrenalene all weekend and I'm proud of my little man.

We went for a follow up yesterday and his platelet count had only made a slight gain, so now he's on prednisone to jump start his marrow production while the doxy continues to do it's thing.

Ticks suck.... just saying.

Ready or Not!

The last pre-championship practice is in the books. We did some full runs outdoors at CSA, but I'm not sure how useful they were since we were running downhill. We are only competing against five other teams in our division, so we need to concentrate on being consistent. We may not win with speed, but we can probably hold our own by running clean.

In three days, Zio and I will be NE of Tulsa, on our way to St. Louis!

Practices

Zio's turns at the demo without props seemed to hold up fairly well, but I think he always tends to do them better on grass (slower?). We have continued to use the 10" board laying flat against the box pedal as the only prop. He occasionally slips up and his bottom rear foot will land on the board, but I don't think he likes that because it causes that foot to slip when he pushes off. At this point, we've really done all we can do in preparation for the championship.

We have one more team practice Sunday and I hope we can find a spot to get some team runs in before we go. We were going to get together Wednesday, but it was very cold and rainy, so we cancelled it. I'd rather know ahead of time if Cody is going to be back up to speed and to get Michele, Daniel, and Susan Owen a little more practice on their starts passing into different dogs with the new lineup.

Demo Pictures

We did a demo Sunday for the Ghost Runner 5K event at Hefner Lake. Linda Earley was there as a photographer and she took some pretty amazing shots of most of the dogs. Here are the best of Zio doing some frisbee stuff.