Mike Update

Well, after 4 days in hospital, Mike is finally getting better. Interesting timing as I was reading on the sheepdog-L group about auto-immune conditions and indications are that is Mike's problem. He had a fever of 105 for 3 days with no discernable change even on antibiotics. After testing for fungal infections and tick born diseases he was started on doxy and prednisone yesterday and had an almost immediate positive response. He will stay at the vet for 1 or 2 more days to make sure he is recovering well, then I can bring him home. We sure do miss him. It is interesting, albeit kind of sad, to see the change in pack dynamics. The dogs are acting differently when we take them out to play and run around. Most interesting to me is the fact that Crue seems to be in charge. He's almost a year now, so not so much a puppy anymore yet not one of the other dogs will stand up to him. He's not aggressive or anything, but he does continue to take toys from the other dogs without them putting up any kind of fight. Even Meg, who nobody crosses, was unable to take the bottle of ice from Crue when I told her to. She tried but he would just run off smiling with his tail in the air. She finally just gave me the look and I knew even she felt Crue had won. There is no animosity at all, just nobody wants to keep anything they have if Crue wants it and nobody can take anything away from Crue. Except me of course. Anyway, as Mike kept me entertained when Seth was sick in the hosp last year, Crue is taking over this year while Mike is in the hosp. I had a nice long (25 min) talk with the young vet at the hosp where Mike is. We actually talked about a lot of things besides Mike and in talking about Seth's stay last year he commented on Feb being a bad month for me with my dogs having to be hospitalized as its been 1 year since I almost lost Seth to toy injestion. I told him to give me a standing appointment for next Feb for one of my dogs. I hope it is just a joke though. Anyway, I'm feeling much better about Mike and I hope he makes a full recovery and lives a very long life free of any more illness. Now I have to book a lot of dogs to pay for his vet bill! So much for fixing up my house! And just to keep it interesting, here is a pic of Mike a few years back working sheep in the desert.