I took the morning off today, to take the youngest pup in for another round of testing. The blood tests and urinalysis done over the weekend pointed steadily at major problems with his kidneys, perhaps even towards renal dysplasia – basically a developmental anomaly that would all but guarantee kidney failure in fairly short order after the initial onset of symptoms. That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear, but I spent most of the night last night reading every article and journal entry I could get my hands on without a subscription. If that was, indeed, the worst case scenario, I wanted to know what we were up against. Nothing I read gave me a warm fuzzy.

This morning’s round of testing has given cause for a bit of cautious optimism. Jorah’s urine was concentrated, had appropriate color and smell, and its specific gravity was low, but still in the target range for normal. Those things wouldn’t likely be in the case if his kidneys were in the process of failing. He’s schedule for a trip through south eastern Pennsylvania on Friday to see a specialist and get an abdominal ultrasound. Barring an invasive biopsy, it’s the surest way to verify that his kidneys are correct in size and shape. Cautious optimism.

Since the mass consumption of water is something Jorah’s done since the day I brought him home and we’ve established that his kidneys are concentrating fluid and his blood isn’t showing any of the other likely issues, one of the remaining outliers could be that he’s just obsessed with drinking. The fact that it’s possible I gravitated, in a building full of dogs, to one that could have a touch of good old fashioned OCD probably shouldn’t be in any way surprising.

We’re still a ways off from having a truly definitive answer, but moving the one that’s effectively a short term death sentence more towards the unlikely column feels like a pretty good day’s work.