Thursday, October 6, 2011

Cardiology - Solid as a Rock

Poor Gata, she goes from working to collapse, to not working, to working twice within a few hours, and then being poked and prodded on top of that. But she continues to be that dog with a super solid temperament and took it in stride. Though this time I made sure that the techs would be a little more relaxed around her by putting a muzzle on her. She didn't mind the ECGs and blood pressure readings nearly as much as being held down for the chest x-rays. But she did great.

She had 2 vets today - our excellent diagnostician, Dr. Peter Eeg, and a visiting cardiologist, Dr. Weise. We started out with a round of ECG, cardiac ultrasound, and blood pressure. Then I worked her pretty hard in obedience with lots of long throw rewards. Both were impressed with her movement and conditioning (and her obedience work). Then we checked her overall status, eyes, temp, movement (a little less free but definitely not collapsed) and took her back inside for another round of ECG, blood pressure and finally, chest x-rays.

Her temp was back over 105 again. Dr. Eeg and I have gotten used to that but it definitely freaked out Dr. Weise. Her pupils were very constricted after work and stayed that way a little longer than we expected. It was a sunny day but we expected them to relax a little more quickly and become more responsive to light stimulus. We kept her in the shade for a couple of minutes outside and they remained constricted. Once we took her back inside they returned to normal.So, kind of hard to tell if that means anything. Her patellar reflexes, though hard to find with all that hair, were normal.

Anyway, we have sent blood off to the U of MN for analysis using the Labrador EIC DNA test. We have also sent enough blood for them to use in the BCC project. And, now, we just wait. We all agree that it is most likely a CNS issue but which one and how do we treat it? I guess I have the upcoming winter and early spring to try to figure that out. So, there will probably be infinitely more musings on EIC and CNS conditions on this blog than anyone would ever expect from a dog training blog :-)   Oh well, my blog ...

To make matters worse, on the way in to work after that, I had a very small fender bender. But the man I hit has had 2 previous neck surgeries and wanted an ambulance. So, that definitely was not a welcome addition to the day. Barely scratched his bumper but there you have it ...  Sometimes when it rains it pours.

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