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Hi all...

horsegen March 12, 2009 February 22, 2011

Forums

I'm sorry I've been lax in getting over here...thank you to both Paxo and Countercanter/Sara for e-mailing me! I have been here, and have lurked around for a while, but just haven't posted. It's been very, very busy for us lately. My beautiful husky has cancer...a neurofibrosarcoma on her hind leg. My husband removed it, and it did not metastasize (thank God), but we consulted an oncologist who said it would assuredly come back if we did not take aggressive measures. So now I take her up to his practice four times a week for radiation treatments. She is handling them like a champ and has two weeks to go, but it's been hard to juggle that with my research and my Ph.D. coursework AND Keira, who is turning two at the end of the month and whose favorite words are "No," "Mine," and "Mama!Mama!Mama!Mama!" Also, I do not like to even think about how much radiation treatments cost...thousands of dollars, and we even get a 40% discount because my husband is a vet with another practice owned by the same corporation...I sold some beautiful custom western show shirts to help pay for some of it, and considered selling my western show saddle because it could almost cover the entire cost...but I just couldn't do it. Sigh. We just used our tax refund instead. :roll: Many, many thanks to those of you that contributed photos for my Welsh pony talk last month...I got to meet Andrea, who gave me some wonderful photos of Frodo, as an excellent example of the splash phenotype! The Welsh people are a great group of breeders and speaking to them is always fun. I was just sorry that your group wasn't hosting the National meeting this year, Andrea...they did such a nice job with that last year when I was there. Anyway, sorry to be absent. I am around, and I'll try to post on anything with which I can be helpful. There's some fun stuff going on right now in this field!

Sara Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:29

I'm so sorry about your dog! I hope everything turns out okay.

Daylene Alford Thu, 03/12/2009 - 23:29

Sorry about your pup also. I am glad you found us though.

Daylene

vneerland Fri, 03/13/2009 - 09:40

Good to see you back.
And my thoughts go out to you and your dog. I lost my extraordinary 6 y.o. k9 last year to lymphosarcoma, taking 10 days from 'something is not right' to her being gone. I would have sold the farm if that could have saved her. :(

TwinCreeksFarm Fri, 03/13/2009 - 15:26

yey for horsegen being back! sorry to hear about your doggy, hopefully everything gets better.

critterkeeper Fri, 03/13/2009 - 17:08

Welcome HG :toast - your absence was noticed... :sad

Sorry to hear about your "baby's" troubles - I'll say a prayer for a full recovery. :ympray:

Songcatcher Fri, 03/13/2009 - 17:36

Very glad to see you on her horsegen. I just got on here a few days ago myself. I was wondering about you. Hope all goes well with your dog.

RiddleMeThis Fri, 03/13/2009 - 19:25

Welcome! Very glad you are here!! So very very very sorry about your dog! I hope he gets better very very soon.

horsegen Sat, 03/14/2009 - 16:50

Thanks for all the kind words...she's doing very well with the treatments, and this treatment has a very, very high success rate for this type of cancer. (This was very important to my hubby, who did not want to spend thousands of dollars unless this was almost a sure thing.) So I'm very hopeful that once these treatments are done, we will never see the stupid cancer again, and she will go on for another seven years at least! I love her dearly, and she is wonderful with Keira, so she is completely irreplaceable. At least we had the means to do it...so many people these days don't!

steffiegilbert Sun, 03/15/2009 - 03:25

I am glad you are back. I was missing in action too! We just saved the best for last, right??? lol.

Andrea Mon, 03/16/2009 - 15:59

It was really great to meet you and listen to the gasps from my trainer as you spoke. :o There were a lot of old time breeders who really learned something I think.
I hope your dog pulls through and I'll send some prayers and warm wishes your way!

thorwood Mon, 03/16/2009 - 17:52

Horsegen,

Glad to see you here, things wouldn't have been the same without your input.
Sorry to hear about your dog, hoping for a positive outcome.
What was the talk you gave to the Welsh folks about???

horsegen Mon, 03/16/2009 - 22:55

[quote]It was really great to meet you and listen to the gasps from my trainer as you spoke. :o There were a lot of old time breeders who really learned something I think.[/quote]

Well they sure had a lot of questions afterward! I was fielding phone calls for a few days after the talk as well, mostly from breeders with dun. :) I like the Welsh group a lot...they are a lot of fun. Lots of interest, lots of questions! It makes it fun to talk to a group like that...nothing more boring than standing up there talking and just watching people stare at you...

[quote]What was the talk you gave to the Welsh folks about???[/quote]

Coat color genetics, of course. ;) It's what most groups want to hear about, so I do more lecturing on coat color than any other topic...and coat color isn't even my area of research. Actually, last year Andrea's group hosted the National meeting, and I spoke there as a fill-in for my boss, who couldn't make it at the last minute. So she asked me to go instead. She had planned to talk about the status of the equine genome project, so that's what I lectured on. But after the talk, about 80% of the questions had to do with coat color, so this year when they called me they asked if I would speak specifically on coat color. They actually made me the Keynote speaker, which I did not find out about until I actually got there. :oops: No pressure. :shock: Fortunately it went well!

thorwood Mon, 03/16/2009 - 23:18

LOL, well yeah, :shock: I realised that, but wondered if it was a specific subject or just a general talk.
I have been a member of our welsh society here in australia for over 10 years now, & oh dear, the understanding of colour
genetics, with the exception of a handful of breeders, seemed to be pretty much zero.

Among my biggest gripes, there was no name for smoky black & all buckskins were registered as dun. Thankfully in very recent times
they will now register buckskin & smoky blacks are registered as dilute black, which is better than nothing.
They also registered double dilutes as cream, as well as palominos. So they were all bunched in together as cream.
At least now we have cremello & perlino, but no such thing as a smoky cream yet!!!!!!

lipigirl Tue, 03/17/2009 - 09:18

Lovely to have you back Horsegen and hope your Husky makes it. ;)