I am continually amazed at the sleuthing my friend Julie does to stay ahead of Lulu’s many physiological and endocrine-related issues. Nearly every week, Julie reports on another test or study they are doing to try to figure out why Lulu behaves the way she does.

When I was in veterinary practice, what I most enjoyed was the internal medicine aspect of care. I loved learning about how the body worked and how everything is interrelated. The human and animal bodies are truly amazing creations. It is a wonder that our bodies work as well as they do, given all the things that could potentially go wrong!

As I have stated before, I am way out of the loop as far as veterinary medicine is concerned. I still have “inklings” of something not being quite right upon occasion, but I don’t really trust my medical judgments these days. And so it was that I sought advice for a problem that has developed here recently with one of my dogs. Ben, the Border collie we added a year ago this week, has started to show intermittent, unpredictable and brief episodes of aggression. He has “attacked” three of the other dogs, without any provocation as far as I could tell. Ninety-nine percent of the time, this dog is as mellow and loving as you could imagine. These "episodes" last mere seconds, but they are scary and very disconcerting. It is foolish for families to co-exist with aggressive, unpredictable animals--I know that, and I don't like the implications of that knowledge.

In the year that we have owned him, I have wondered more than once about his thyroid function, as he has a “thick middle” for such a young dog. I don’t overfeed him at all, and he walks every day. Because he is so young, and because there are no other signs of hypothyroidism except his weight, including a beautiful thick coat of hair, I decided I was imagining things. Therefore, I was surprised when the BC Rescue folks suggested I work up his thyroid—I had no memory of aggression being related to hypothyroidism. (I knew there were mental and physiological changes associated with an overactive thyroid ... but an underactive one?) I researched it and found that there has, indeed, been a correlation between the two. I will be working him up shortly.

This relationship serves to remind me how complex and complicated our children really are. It reminds me of the comment posted recently by the gal who said she had experienced childhood much the same as Amy does … and that I should keep in mind that Amy’s approach might be “ … an illness, probably one with a physical cause, and not necessarily a character flaw.”

I would be ecstatic if Ben’s issues were easily resolved with thyroxine therapy. I’ll let you know if I am that fortunate!

Photo Credit: Ben, taken by Nancy Spoolstra