Busy Week

It has been a busy week.  On Friday/Saturday I headed to Nelson (got as far as Cranbrook Friday night) for a visit.  I had a great time.  Saturday we went to a play (and got stranded halfway to our seats in the dark theatre).

Sunday went kayaking across the lake.

Photo by Debbie from her iPhone

Monday we hiked up Pulpit Rock for a great view of the city.

The crew at the top - I'm embarrassed to say this was NOT taken on my iPhone!

And Tuesday took the pups to the beach in the morning and then Coulee and I headed to Kelowna for a dermatology visit.

Micah went in a few times, but preferred the shore to the water.  Her recalls are soooo much better than when she was staying with us, taking her off leash is finally a pleasure.

While it was a long way to go for the dermatologist, it was totally worth it.  She thinks it is probably an autoimmune disease and that we should continue with what we are doing for now with just a few minor adjustments.  I was a little surprised that she thought it was auto-immune as I thought we had ruled that out.  Turns out that a negative result isn't conclusive unless you've done a few biopsies.  You can "miss" the autoimmune in the biopsy sample and therefore only after several samples can you conclude that it isn't there.  Obviously we aren't going to do that over and over again!  She did say that based on her symptoms, it is the best diagnosis we could hope for.  If her paws keep following a similar pattern, we won't do much about it.  If they start to cause her pain for a week or two at a time, it is obviously affecting her quality of life and we'll amp up treatment.  But for now, it is business as usual.  The best news we got and what made the trip worth it, was that she has been given the go ahead to run around bootie free!!!!  She doesn't think trauma has any role in her symptoms.