Nanuk's 10 th Birthday



Nanuk celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday. He is still very active and he is still my very valued property guardian, nothing escapes him, wether it's a neighbor going for a ride or a raven flying too low or a loose dog on the horizon.
I am happy to say that up until now he has been pretty healthy with only some minor issues. He has had some issues with what I believe his knees for many years but it had not really slowed him down, the only time it is noticable is when he wants to lie down, it takes him a while to get into the right position to lower himself, but he has no problems getting up. Last fall we started him on an NSAID medication to help with pain and inflammation and it has made a difference in his overall activity level, I also give him at least 6 fishoil capsules a day and we have recently started giving him Adequan shots, I hope to maintain his mobility with this regimen together with keeping him lean and plenty of exercise.

here he is a bit miffed because I made him get up from the porch and he wants to lie down again, he wouldn't stand for me nicely, so here is a pic of him in the process of lying down again. He still has a gorgeous coat and good muscle tone. Yesterday was a windy day and once again I brushed out mountains of undercoat, it's amazing how much hair is on a dog. So now Nanuk looks a bit slimmer than he did in the winter even though his weight is still the same 114 lbs.
2 weeks ago we started him on thyroid hormone replacement therapy as his thyroid level was low. It has made quite a difference in his level of alertness. The changes I had seen were very subtle and I had written them off to old age since we were already giving him pain meds, so I knew it wasn't pain. We had done labwork back in October and I had been told everything was okay, but I hadn't seen the results myself, so wasn't aware that his thyroid level was very low normal. We went for a walk today and compared to how he was about 4 weeks ago when it was actually cooler, he was a lot more spiffy and investigating and trotting a lot more than last time when he just ambled along much slower. I am very pleased with this improvement. I really want him to have a quality of life more than anything else. And having the energy to enjoy life is part of that. Me and the vet suspect that it is not his thyroid that is causing the low level but something else, however we don't know that for sure, so I will just keep a close eye on him and we will repeat labwork in a few months and see if anything else comes up out of normal, but in October everything else was fine.

He is such a beautiful boy. For a while I was feeding him foods with grain again and had a really hard time with him having eye stains. As this pictures shows, he does not have a problem with this anymore since I have been feeding him just the grainfree foods and raw foods like turkey necks and chicken parts. I am making my own yoghurt and kefir and so he gets that too as well as raw eggs. This seems to be working for him. Since he started on the thyroid meds he has also taken to climbing into bed with me again. Really interesting, before he would just curl up on his bed, now when I go to bed he comes over and lets me know he wants to come up, so for an hour or so he will sleep up on the bed, then he usually goes outside to watch for coyotes.

Here is hoping that in 4 or 5 months when the weather cools down we can go for a few more hikes in the mountains together.