Tika Update

SUMMARY: Activity, attitude.

Tika has now been on all her heart meds (3 pills) plus antibiotics for a week now--over 2 weeks for the diuretic.

The coughing has gone away almost completely--guess I should've pushed the issue more with the vet earlier. Her stools are a little soft (sorry if TMI) but not really bad--vet suggested looking out for that sort of thing. We'll see how they look when the antibiotics for her anal gland finish up. Nothing wrong with her appetite.

But her energy level or enthusiasm for playing are still lower than they were before The Incident. She played a bit more yesterday and today than she has since The Incident, but not for very long at all. It might be good that she's self-regulating. But I'm also concerned that there seems to be a notable difference.

She likes to just sit or stand there and be rubbed. She always did like it, but now is choosing that instead of toys, which is unusal.

Friday morning I ended up at a drop-in agility class. Ran Boost--mostly good except all the bars coming down--and got some additional pointers on handling (move sooner! where have I heard that before?). Tika looked eager to go, standing up and pawing at her crate. So we set some bars at 12 inches and I ran her over about 5 jumps and then gave her a bunch of rewards, and she seemed satisfied with that.

She's definitely drinking a lot more than she used to--result of the diuretics, I'm guessing.

Anal gland looks better every day. Don't notice any swelling under the surface now. Just 3 more days of cleaning and antibioticking that, thank goodness, although she seems to not mind me massaging it a bit as I clean it and apply the ointment. (Oh, and of course give her a ton of treats.)

And she participated happily in the nosework seminar that we did this weekend--but that's the topic of another post.

All in all, she's acting generally healthy but more like an old dog than she did just a few short weeks ago. I hope it's temporary. Good old girl.