Happy 4th of July!

[Nanno]

Thanks. He's on his way out and we have no idea why. Three vets haven't found anything they can point their finger at. They did chest x-rays on Tuesday to see if there were any tumors in his thorax. Those are fairly common in goats his age and they press on the heart and/or lungs and cause them to fade. But they got some really good pictures and found no tumors. There could be a tumor in the abdomen, but they can't x-ray that. He'd need an ultrasound and nobody around here has the right equipment for that. If he doesn't improve tomorrow we have an appointment to put him down on Saturday. He was so strong and healthy last fall. It seemed like he had at least a few more years of adventure left in him. I've been giving him a nutrient-dense, appetite-stimulating power-drench that one long-time goat vet swears by, and today I added brewer's yeast as well. I think his rumen is still working but there's not enough food in there for it to actually do anything, so most of his ruminating burps are dry heaves. I gave him a steroid injection this afternoon in a last-ditch effort to bring him back to us. We'll see if it makes any difference tomorrow, but I'm not feeling hopeful at this point.

Pongo has been a little beacon of light. Finn has always been aloof from the other goats and has never liked to share space, but I've been penning him with just Pongo as a companion, and Pongo snuggles right up to Finn without Finn protesting. Finn has sometimes been laying his head on Pongo for a pillow lately, and Pongo doesn't mind at all. He's one of Snowball's babies and she snuggles with all her kids through adulthood. It's sweet to see them together. Finn always prefers to snuggle up to people though. Any time Phil or I go to sit with him, he lays his head against us, even if he has to get into an awkward position to do it. He's always been a sweetheart.