Chapter 5 In Which Plato's Owners Have Little Time to Write WebPages

Chapter 5 In Which Plato's Owners Have Little Time to Write WebPages
	A Giant Monster Plato has become a gigantic beast. In an chapter 1, there is a picture of Plato lying on my chest when we first brought him home. This is what it looks like now. He has a great temperment and personality and wants nothing more than to get close and snuggle up on the chair. We've done a second round of training, now, but haven't learned many new tricks.
What a Ham! Plato can't resist getting into the picture. He gets along well with the kids, though he is sometimes overly enthusiastic and tends to knock them down when playing outside. Daniel can hold his own most of the time and has become very assertive with the dog. Sometimes Daniel is too assertive with Plato -- we actually spend more time protecting Plato from Daniel than the other way around nowadays.) Plato doesn't have a mean bone in his body and just wants to play. Alisa thought he was too nippy until we visted her father (who has a new dog that is 6 months older than Plato named Betsy). Betsy is very sweet, but has less experience with kids and wanted to nip them constantly -- not in a mean way, but still requiring constant supervision. Betsy also licked Daniel's head so much the first night we were there that Daniel's hair was all matted with dog saliva. To be fair, Daniel loved it and kissed Betsy full on the mouth at bedtime.
	Plato's Lame Leg Plato's left hind leg has been intermittently lame since November or December. It gets swollen and he limps painfully around. He's been in for X-Rays twice and we've done several rounds of bloodwork, but so far have found no explanation. The swelling is not an infection and doesn't seem to be related to any injury or observable abnormality in his knee. Currently, we're giving him prednisone, trying the hypothesis that the swelling is the result of an autoimmune problem. Due to Plato's sore leg, he doesn't get out for walks as often as he would like. The fenced yard helps a lot and we do try to get him out for short walks even when his leg is acting up. He loves the new smells and, especially, meeting new people. We all hope his leg will get better soon.
Revised 3/25/00 Brewer