Hi!
I just found this site recently, after my favorite dog board became defunct. My name is Meghan. I live in Sacramento, CA, with my husband, our 7 r old son Alex, and our much-loved 11.5 yr old Golden retriever, Gerry. We also have 3 semi-sane cats, including a young Maine Coon with a penchant for chewing cords and hanging out IN Gerry's water bowl. Despite the fact that he doesn't come close to fitting.
We've had Gerry since he was about a year old. He originally came from a high-kill municipal shelter where I was working. He's a field-type Golden: tall, lanky, dark red. Well, except for the gray that's showed up on his face and paws.
Gerry is kind of a weekend warrior. When he was younger he and I took all sorts of training classes - family dog classes, CGC, agility, traditional obedience, rally, even some field work. He's got a CGC but otherwise I don't have much interest in actual competition. Mostly, the classes were a way for us to bond, learn new things/techniques, and talk to other dog people.
These days he's mostly sedentary, although we go places on the weekend, usually to the beach or hiking up around Lake Tahoe. He could take or leave the other dogs, but he loves getting out and meeting all the new people. His stamina isn't what it used to be, and he has a lot of trouble climbing steep hills, so we stay away from that now.
I'm hoping to learn things here about how to help G through his twilight years. Currently he's got chronic ear problems, a GI "motility disorder" from when he bloated 3 years ago, severe hip and knee arthritis in his left leg from a compound femur break he sustained sometime before we got him, and a mast cell tumor on his right thigh. He went through a chemo drug trial for that, but given all his other issues, his age, and the fact that the tumor is slow-growing, we've opted to just make him comfortable.
He takes ear meds, tramadol, probiotics, and a joint supplement. We tried NSAIDS for a while, but his stomach kind of hates them and he already has tendency to develop vomiting and diarrhea out of nowhere. We didn't want to make that worse.
Anyway, I look forward to getting to know everyone and their dogs!
I just found this site recently, after my favorite dog board became defunct. My name is Meghan. I live in Sacramento, CA, with my husband, our 7 r old son Alex, and our much-loved 11.5 yr old Golden retriever, Gerry. We also have 3 semi-sane cats, including a young Maine Coon with a penchant for chewing cords and hanging out IN Gerry's water bowl. Despite the fact that he doesn't come close to fitting.
We've had Gerry since he was about a year old. He originally came from a high-kill municipal shelter where I was working. He's a field-type Golden: tall, lanky, dark red. Well, except for the gray that's showed up on his face and paws.
Gerry is kind of a weekend warrior. When he was younger he and I took all sorts of training classes - family dog classes, CGC, agility, traditional obedience, rally, even some field work. He's got a CGC but otherwise I don't have much interest in actual competition. Mostly, the classes were a way for us to bond, learn new things/techniques, and talk to other dog people.
These days he's mostly sedentary, although we go places on the weekend, usually to the beach or hiking up around Lake Tahoe. He could take or leave the other dogs, but he loves getting out and meeting all the new people. His stamina isn't what it used to be, and he has a lot of trouble climbing steep hills, so we stay away from that now.
I'm hoping to learn things here about how to help G through his twilight years. Currently he's got chronic ear problems, a GI "motility disorder" from when he bloated 3 years ago, severe hip and knee arthritis in his left leg from a compound femur break he sustained sometime before we got him, and a mast cell tumor on his right thigh. He went through a chemo drug trial for that, but given all his other issues, his age, and the fact that the tumor is slow-growing, we've opted to just make him comfortable.
He takes ear meds, tramadol, probiotics, and a joint supplement. We tried NSAIDS for a while, but his stomach kind of hates them and he already has tendency to develop vomiting and diarrhea out of nowhere. We didn't want to make that worse.
Anyway, I look forward to getting to know everyone and their dogs!