Cushing’s, cushions and twinkles

Well we seem to be constantly apologising to everyone for not having time to do everything at the moment, but life seems to be going through one of those phases when challenge after challenge comes along.

We have recently had Susie-Belle tested for Cushing’s disease as we suspected she may have it, key signs and symptoms for her are her weight – but she IS greedy -shivering when out and about if she’s not wearing her coat and sometimes if she is, trembling legs, and symmetrical bald patches appearing on her back and along her spine. Anyway, we had the tests done last weekend and results this week show she’s all clear for Cushing’s, which is great news, but no explanation for the balding (in particular, the others might be her rather greedy nature and my weakness at portion control with her). So, we’re going to run a thyroid test just to see. In the meantime, I’ve started her on some good quality kelp, which is good for coat thickness and quality and used in natural medicine if there are thyroid issues, so that’ll be an additional benefit if it turns out this is a problem. Much to Susie-Belle’s annoyance, we have instigated a diet. She must lose some weight. Hard as it is she must.

And it’s just got harder, as we now have a new little schnauzer in the family, Twinkle Berry arrived on Wednesday. She is a darling girl, but completely petrified of everything, people in particular. She is miles worse than SusieB when she came to us, she had after all spent 6 months with her foster-mum, but she was never as scared as Twinkle is anyway.

One major advantage with Twinkle and it’s something we’re making good use of, is she is very food oriented and will approach us for food, and so far, coaxing her to do things, simple things like come upstairs, or downstairs (which she hasn’t yet managed) using liver cake, or fishy biscuits seems to be working. However, little Miss Greedy is always straight there, wanting her share, so Susie-Belle’s waistline is more challenged than ever.

I’ll get some photos up later of Twinkle, the girls have all been totally brilliant with her, she’s learning from them and although I know it is going to take months and months of patience, we are all loving having her with us. Susie-Belle in particular seems to have gained in confidence with her in the house, almost as if she’s enjoying the challenge of showing another damaged little soul that life can be good.