A Virus

Zeetie started making a funny snort from her nose now and again last week. By Wednesday afternoon, she was coughing and bringing up a clear bile. Wednesday night she hacked all though the night.

She went into Dr. Murray's last night (Thursday) and it turns out he has had six dogs in the past bit with the same symptoms. It's something going around at dog parks. She has no fever. A steroid injection to clear her airways gave her a sounder sleep last night and a long-lasting antibiotic to clear any infection and to ward off any infection was given. Like a cold, this will run its course.

I think Zeetie became pretty stressed during her dog park walks with so many dogs and everything so new so her system was down.

In the meantime, she may still be contagious so no Trickster or other dogs for another couple of weeks. If Trickster is going to be infected, it will start to show next week but I hope not. He is a pretty strong guy.

This also means our long-awaited draft carting practice in Lanark is off this weekend. I was worried when I signed up that we weren't far enough along in carting but I realized this practice could only do us good so I was looking forward to it. It's a disappointment. However, there will be more practices but maybe not until next spring.

Apart from that, Zeetie seems to be overcoming her fear of dogs on leashes. I write that hesitantly but we've had a few good days. Even at the vet's office, she wanted to go over and say hi to a big pup (she usually lunges if I don't pay attention) but I couldn't let her because she may still be contagious. She's a little more protective on her street but we're working on it still. She has been such a good girl and positive reinforcement on everything really works.

When she starts barking at dogs outside, I go out and say 'what are the rules', and she goes and lies down with a groan. It's all in the tone of voice because you can say almost anything when she is barking like that and she will lie down and stop barking. Lynn taught me well.