Rough Weeks.

It has been a rough two weeks caring for newborn pups, two girls in heat and if that wasn't difficult enough, Bandit has had three more seizures over the weekend. I thought we had this nipped in the bud, but apparently we were wrong.

My beautiful marvelous leader dog in training. It is heartbreaking to have so much hope and promise in a dog and then have your dreams blasted from the water. This will mean we will need to have him neutered as we submit him to a battery of tests that is sure to be traumatic for him as he is still kind of shy even though he is a very gentle giant of a Siberian.

I can't help thinking if there was something I could have done differently while raising him to prevent this. Only time and a diagnosis will tell us that. His brother Bucky seems uneffected by whatever malady ails Bandit. But he was born monorchid which makes me question the whole line.

One thing is for sure, there will be no more litters until we know for sure. Jim spoke again to our vet and when they did a full blood workup on him there were no signs of disease, thyroid imbalance or other known identifiable cause by bloodwork, so by the research I've been able to do so far, we are left with bone spur, tumor, or genetic disorder. We will probably be putting him on meds this week to control his seizures, and proceed with diagnostics as time and money permits. I have found a seizure research group for dogs, and since we own both parents and a sibling still, we may submit DNA samples to further their research. So even if we aren't able to cure him, at least we can help the larger community.