Hmmm...

We had another appointment with the vet yesterday afternoon -- Secret needed her booster for Lepto & Lyme. Now all we have left to do is Bordatella (since we travel so much to shows), which we'll get at the next appointment.

Secret was a good girl while we waited at the clinic. She showed interest in several people and warmed up to some more than others. She got to meet Frank, the office cat, but she was not happy at all about him taking up residence next to me. She barked at him quite a bit, then decided to go for the "ignore him" tactic.

When we went to the scale, I was a little surprised to see that Secret weighed in at 28.5 lbs. For a 4 1/2 month old? (More on that later....) She's huge! I thought it surely would not be a stretch to assume she'll end up around 50 lbs and 23". (Again, more later...)

Secret does not seem to care for the vet tech, Annette, at all. She air-snapped at her when Annette tried to look at her teeth the first time. The good news is that she got considerably better as the appointment went on and put up no further resistance. Actually, by the time we left she was letting everyone pet her.

I mentioned that Secret had recently lost a couple of teeth, so Annette started digging around in her mouth to have a look. I was a little surprised when Annette made a comment to the effect of Secret being around 5 1/2 months. I said, "You mean 4 1/2 months, right? Because her birthday is 9/15/09." Annette explained that no, she was pretty sure Secret was about 5 1/2 months based on the development of her canine teeth. Hmm.

So of course, when Dr. Randy came in, this was the first thing I threw at him. I wanted his opinion on Secret's age. After looking her over quite thoroughly, he proclaimed that he would say with some certainty that she is at least 5 1/2 months old, if not closer to 6 months of age. Wow, really? I can't really explain why, but I was quite taken aback by this news.

After having a bit of time to process this information, I have to say that I am DELIGHTED that I no longer have a gargantuan 4 1/2 month old. At the trial this weekend, several people remarked on how huge she was for her age (or at least the age we believed her to be). I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have a very large Border Collie.

The good news is that she's now considered a more average to petite almost 6-month-old. Now I am believing that she'll end up more along the lines of 19-20" and 35 to 40 lbs. Happy dance about that one!

And now for the not so good news... Secret's teeth are not coming along as we'd hoped. Her lower canines are looking to be a problem. Randy is holding out hope that the left will end up sliding out enough so as to not be an issue, but the lower right canine is our problem child. Currently, it is growing straight up and into the roof of her mouth -- so much so that there is already an indentation in the gum line from it.

Secret will come to Luke's appointment on February 19 so that Randy can keep an eye on it. We may end up having to pull that tooth in the coming months. As Randy explained it, vets don't typically like to pull canine teeth because it compromises the strength & stability of the jaw, but he feels that she is young enough that she will grow bone in its place and that it shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Meanwhile, I am trying -- perhaps in vain -- to manipulate the tooth on a regular basis to perhaps encourage it to grow in an outward manner. Any little bit of movement out will help, and Randy said it surely wouldn't hurt anything. They do make braces for dogs, but it's really not an option for me right now... Not only because of the cost of the braces themselves, but also because it would require driving to Appleton on a very regular basis. Not doable.

I took pictures and posted them below as a reference to track the development of Secret's bite. Let's hope that it grows the right way!