atta boy

Look at my happy guy! Tonight we needed to get Magda the Demon Dog to the dog park. Her energy levels today were off the charts, and she was making everyone in the household crazy. But Merlin seemed to be in a good space and wanted some attention, so we brought him along as well.

We were nervous about this because he hasn't been to the dog park (or any big doggy activity) since his video shoot, which really took a toll. But in the last week or so, his energy has been back up a bit, so we thought we would go and determine what to do. If the park was full and rambunctious, he would get a slow walk along the lake while Magda played. If it was calm and full of older dogs, maybe we would let him join in.

We arrived and there was only one other dog there (!!) and he was 10 as well, so in Merlin went. Hoooo boy was he a happy guy. I haven't seen smiles on my boy this big in awhile, and it made me so, so happy. We only stayed for 15-20 minutes because we didn't want to push our luck with him, but luckily Magda ran a ton during this time so she is once again a sweet, mellow dog.

We also got Merlin's test results back today, and he has Cushing's disease. There were a lot of potential diagnoses that would have been worse, so I'll take this one. It's treated with (very expensive) pills, so we'll get him on the treatment as soon as we can.

The most interesting part of all of this is that the disease is caused by his body producing too many steroids. Memphis had all of the exact symptoms because due to her stomach issues, she was on steroids as treatment for years. So yeah, this is all very familiar. We are hoping he reacts well to the treatment and gets some of the strength back in his hind legs. Because if that happens? He gets way more trips to the dog park. And who doesn't want to see that happy face up there as often as possible?