I'm a bad mom!

So I have been really bad about updating Monty's blog lately! This past week has been crazy at school with my Academy hosting a huge Ag Day for over 100 4th graders. I'm beat! Everything since the last post has been good. Monty handled her second round of chemo pretty good. She lost her appetite until about Saturday and then it picked up again. My friend Pam suggested that we try peppermint since it's an appetite stimulant and so we'll give that a try next time around.

On Saturday, I took Montana with me down to Manteca for a gymkhana. She had a good time, but boy she knocked over her water bucket about a million times while she was tied up! I finally found a lower bowl for her to use and that helped a lot. She never was too good tied up, but now with her hopping motion it's definitely more difficult!

On Sunday, Montana was tired from all the activity the day before, but she still wanted to head out with me in the morning. Unfortunately for her, I was going on a trail ride with some riding buddies so she had to stay home. She hung out with Torsten and recuperated though:-).

On Tuesday, Montana had a busy day. First she visited Dr. Gabby and had her blood checked. Everything looks good on that front. Unfortunately Dr. Gabby is leaving VCA so Montana will have a new oncologist. Dr. Gabby is having a baby and then she and her husband are moving. I hate to switch doctors in the middle of all of this, but we're happy for Dr. Gabby. She's been a great vet and we're so grateful for all her help during this difficult time.

After visiting Dr. Gabby, Montana had a check up with Dr. Stevens and Dr. Beebe. She did have some soreness in her back again (not so much that she was in pain normally, but she reacted during her exam and treatment). She had another round of immuno-accupuncture, which we want to keep doing through her chemo. Monty is scheduled to go back in a month and we'll almost be ready for summer by then!

After all of the craziness of the diagnosis, surgery and post-op complications, we're definitely back in the swing of things again. We've officially past the 8 week mark of her surgery and things are going pretty smoothly again. Torsten and I are looking forward to summer break and spending a bunch of time with Montana. We unfortunately did plan one camping trip where dogs aren't allowed (Pt. Reyes), but she's lucky to always have her grandparents willing to take her in.

2nd Chemo down!

Monty had her second round of chemo yesterday. It all went really well, but she does seem to have lost her appetite a bit. This happened the first time around, so it just might be how it is, but we'll monitor it. Other than that, she's doing really well. She seems to have a harder time in the heat, which is to be expected. I'm planning on going to a gymkhana in Manteca on Saturday, so Monty will get to come and I'm sure that will be fun. I still need to add some more pictures from the Cancer Walk and will do that when I have a bit more time:-)

The weekend was fun!

Yesterday morning, I drove Montana down to the big park and then we went for nice walk. There was no way she could walk down to the park and then enjoy a walk in the park, so that's why there was driving involved. She ran and ran and ran. It's hard to tell just how far she's going to be able to go, so when you turn around to go back, there are usually several rest breaks. After her walk, we went to Waggers to buy more food and some more treats. She got to visit with some dogs and with the sweet ladies who run the shop. She definitely enjoyed her outing. Tomorrow, she goes back for *hopefully* her second round of chemo. They'll check her blook counts first and if they look good, she'll have a treatment. At the Cancer Walk on Saturday there were several lecturers and one of them explained that since the dogs don't have the choice whether or not to take chemo, they, as vets, are extra careful to not make them sick. If Monty had gotten her chemo last week, she would have been sick, so that's why we have to wait until Tuesday.

On a good note, I received several fun pictures from Saturday's walk from Seanne (mine were mostly dark from being in the shade) so I'll post those later on since they're on my laptop at home. Also, I've discovered if you mix Monty's pills in with her food, she will actually eat them (as long as it's sprinkled with cheese!). That makes it a lot easier since she's getting so many vitamins and supplements right now.

Tripawd Party!

Today Monty had a Tripawd party with Cemil, an Anatolian Shepherd. We met Cemil's mom Mary, and another Tripawd pal Seanne and her family this morning at the K9K Walk to Cure Canine Cancer down in Elk Grove. Seanne just lost her Tripawd Wrigley a few weeks ago, but she brought Rookie and her new puppy Willow as well as her husband and daughter. Torsten missed the fun because he was working. Monty and I didn't actually do the walk, but she did play in the grass and romp around a bit with the other dogs. This was her first big outing with other dogs since her surgery. After the others did the walk, there were guest speakers who talked about cancer in dos and the need to find a cure for it. They had a great turn out, probably between 80 and 100 dogs out there. It was a lot of fun and we look forward to doing it again next year. Monty was zonked when we got home from all the excitement!

A bit to catch up on...

This week has been incredibly busy so I haven't updated in a bit! Monty has had a good week including getting to go to Santa Rosa for a visit. Torsten took her today for her second chemo treatment, but her blood work came back bad so she's going to go in on Tuesday. The vets assured us that it's nothing to worry about, that's why they do blood work during chemo treatment so they don't give her a treatment if her body isn't ready. She also is three weeks from her first treatment tomorrow, so they said that it could be back to normal by the weekend, but they don't do treatments on the weekend. We also added a supplement to her diet called DHA. It's pretty much Omega-3s, that Dr. Stramm said is proving to be very effective for dogs with cancer. The only down side to it is that the pills I bought her are 200 mg and she needs 1000mgs so she's getting quite a few pills each day! That's probably about it for now:-)

A busy Saturday

Today, Monty somehow knew I was going to go watch a barrel race. Dacquiri isn't in good enough shape to run yet, but there was a race in Sacramento, so I wanted to go and watch. Since Monty knew this, she wanted to come with me. So off to Sac Horsemen's we went. She had fun seeing all the horses and standing near the gate so she could bark at them as they took off. Several people were curious about what happened to her, including this one girl, who couldn't have been older than 6. She came up to me and asked "Excuse me, do you know how her leg fell off?" It was very cute. We also stopped by the barn to check on the horses, but she had to stay in the truck. She was tired from all the excitement so she didn't get a walk tonight. After getting home, she shared the front room with Melvin for a nap.

"She makes Torsten look good"

The title from today's post is a quote from Nola. We loaded up tonight and Monty got to visit one of her favorite people and all her friends at agility class. Monty actually did some of the training obstacles and was very confident. She was able to do a small jump, a walk-it, a teeter, the tunnel and the sit table. The weave poles were a bit challenging, but she never did like the weave poles, so it's no biggie. She was so happy to be out there, it was very obvious! As you can see in the tunnel picture, she is able to get around really quickly!





Before taking her to see Nola, we took her for a walk to the park. She was sporting her new red Ruff Wear harness and had a lot of fun. She was running all over, so we were resting with her on the grass when she decided to play with Torsten. One of Monty's cool "tricks" is that she can play very aggressively and then when you tell her "okay," she turns it off immediately. She loves to wrestle and jump around and is always excited by her leash!

I forgot to post yesterday, but Monty saw Dr. Stramm and Dr. Stevens. Both thought she looked really good and she's going to go back in 3 weeks. Dr. Stramm did a little acupuncture on her back and also did this treatment on her immunity points. To do this, she withdrew blood and then injected her blood back into those points. It was weird! She explained that her immune system would "attack" the injected blood, but since it was her own, it wouldn't cause any harm, just give her immune system a good jolt. I'm probably not explaining that quite right, but it was pretty interesting. Dr. Stramm had just attended a conference on Bone Cancer in dogs and told me that there were really good results with giving them high levels of fish oil. We already have her on 1000 mg of fish oil but are going to up it to 2000 mg.

I think that's all to report for today. I did want to include a couple of current pictures of her incision site. It's all healed up and her fur is growing back nicely. Most likely, there won't be a lot to report for tomorrow as Montana will probably be wiped out from all of today's activities. She'll probably fight Melvin for her pillow all day!

Monday:-)

Monty had a good weekend. She had a quick visit from Ute and Olov on Saturday, a walk and two car trips. She was all worn out! She hung out with Torsten most of the day yesterday. They watched Nascar, a Giants game and golf! Today I'm home with her, but I'm going to be heading out to the barn in a bit, so she'll have to stay home. She's out cold on her pillow right now, so I don't think she'll be too lonely. Tomorrow she gets to go and get another accupuncture and chiro treatment at 11. Ahhh...a day at the spa, so rough!

Tests are good:-)

Monty had her CBC yesterday and everything looks good! They only problem we're having lately is that Melvin has been stealing her pillow upstairs. Poor Monty is too nice to kick him off and they aren't friendly enough to share, so she's been on the floor. Every time we catch Melvin on her bed we put him up on ours, but he's been persistent! It's weird how the cats like to steal her space every once in awhile. It seems to happen in phases. Well, I'm glad that's the only "bad" news to report, as everything else is going GREAT!

Not much new is happening...which is good!

Montana and I have been hanging out the last two days since Torsten has been at work. She's had a walk each day and even came out to the barn with me last night. She's eating good but becoming a master at spitting out her pills! She gets a CBC tomorrow to make sure all is good from her chemo last week. She's still moving around great and wanting to do things which is awesome. Nothing else much to report at this point. I'll update tomorrow after her test results come back:-)