Cinco De Mayo

We're celebrating lots of things today. It's Cinco De Mayo which means we'll probably go out for enchaladas tonight. Rob and I met in Acapulco, Mexico and were married in Mexico, New York, so we feel the urge to celebrate.


The next thing to celebrate is the ninth birthday of our friend Thor.

Thor is a Mastiff. He's a very big boy, but extremely sweet and gentle. Here are some of my favorite pictures of him.


Look what a gentleman is as he converses with the guinea pig.


He rests with his mallard, one of his favorite toys.


Happy birthday, Thor and many, many more of them.

Next thing to celebrate is Samba's checkup. It's been two months since her last checkup for the Myositis and six weeks since the paralysis began.


She's doing great. She has grown a new coat of curly hair. It's very thin and her skin is dry and flaky, but those are both caused by the prednisone. She's maintaining her weight even with the extra snacks she steals at every opportunity.


She can open her mouth pretty wide as she demonstrated by eating yogurt from a spoon. She can catch a ball and yawn, both good signs. The paralysis is causing a few problems, but they're mainly cosmetic. Her eye gets dry because she doesn't blink normally and needs ointment and drops.

She gets rather drooly because her lips sag on the left side. Dr B suggested cutting the hair on her muzzle very short and using a warm soft towel to dry her face when necessary.


She's doing so well that we're cutting her prednisone back to 25 mg on odd days and 5 mg on even days. Our aim is to get her to 20 mg every other day as a maintenance dose and so far we're making good progress.

We're also going to raise her dosage on her thyroid meds. She'll need to go back for another blood test in about six weeks. Dr B was very happy with her progress so far. He's even hopeful that the paralysis is temporary.

It's been a good day and we have a lot to celebrate.