It's been a while. Again. But that only means there's more to tell.
We've had a busy autumn, with exams and tests piling up, but we've had time for some wonderful outdoor experiences too. The first snow has fallen, and it seems to be staying for a while. I've never seen a happier dog than Vojak on the first day after snowfall! It seems he has missed it, since his first puppy months in Kosice were all about playing around in the cold, white powder covering his world. He can just walk around in the snow, scoping it up with his mouth and enjoying for once to be able to eat his daily water intake instead of just drinking it like any regular dog. But snow makes our little boy happy, and that's what it's all about.
During this autumn, Vojak's had some intestinal troubles. He's been on different cures to deal with an intermittent diarrhea, but after being on expensive pharmacy feeds for a month, we have now put him on Royal Canine Maxi sensible, which seems to be working perfectly! No runny or pasteous feces what so ever. Hooray! The only drawback is that he should have been on the puppy feed for a couple of more months. But from what I've learned from my Nutrition and Dietetics teacher, I can't see what nutrients he'd be missing out on. And a diarrhea free dog on adult food is obviously a whole lot better than a dog with a semi-upset intestine on puppy food!
Apart from this feed-victory, we've recently gotten his hips X-rayed for hip dysplasia. We've only done it as a precaution, and for two main reasons; that we may want to breed on him when he gets old enough, and that we are planning to sign up to train agility after Christmas.
My radiology teacher let me assist in the X-ray procedure, but I still have to find him to know the results, because the proper HD diagnosis can only be made after several measurements and calculations based on the angle of the head of the femur toward the acetabulum (socket) of the hip joint. The radiologist will fill out the official papers for us, and then we'll know for sure the state of his hip joints. I got a sneak peak at the X-rays before they went into the file for the diagnostic procedure, and to my still untrained eye it looked quite good.
We will post the results when we receive them from the veterinary clinic.
During the X-ray procedure, we discovered that Vojak does not respond to sedatives according to book standards. He got only half a dose of the sedative, and it didn't seem to work, so we just started the procedure with him half-awake. It worked out well enough, he was awake during the whole thing but didn't mind much. But a good 40 minutes after the shot, when the procedure was finished and we lifted him off the table, he sunk together like a pudding. And he stayed that way for most of the day. We were a bit worried, so we made sure to stay with him the whole time. He vomited a couple of times and looked quite shabby, but when we all woke the next morning he was his old self again - and really hungry after only being offered rice the night before!
