In Memorium, Max

Jim, I finally took a look at this thread, and am sorry to hear about Max and your dad. Thanks for posting the great photo, it gives a real sense of how enjoyable it must have been to be out in the snow with Max.<br><br>I did not imagine TAY being useful in this way when I started it, but at that point I didn't know very many of the great people involved in backcountry skiing around here. Knowing what I know now, I'm not surprised at all.<br><br>I don't have a dog now, but I grew up with two dogs, and they truly were great companions and we had a lot of adventures together. We also had a Max, whose full name was "Maxwell Smart, Agent 86", from the Get Smart TV show. His sister's name originally was "Agent 99" but my mother refused to use that name, so we changed it to "Lucy". Both dogs lived into their late teens and died while I was away at college, so their passing didn't hit me as hard as it might have - I had already said my goodbyes in a sense.

You might ask your vet does he/she not vaccinate with 7-way?<br><br>I have so many dogs now, I have to do all of them myself, except for rabies since vets must do that one, by law.<br><br>There is also the possibility that a vaccine does not take. But even so, Lepto deaths are only at a rate of about 10%.<br><br>Sorry to hear about your dad. You're really getting hit hard here.

David - he got hit by the bratislava strain, and that apparently is not impacted by the vaccinations that are available today. Add to that the fact that Max was a large 11 year old dog, and his kidneys may not have had a lot of spare nephrons going before this unfortunate event.

Sure enough, darn-it-all. Thanks for all the extra info. I'm asking at a rather bad time, I know. Its obviously a concern for me as well as any other dog owner. I found that pigs, horses, and rodents are vectors for bratislava serotype. And the incidence of dog infection is increasing. Interestingly, there USED to be a vaccine for that serovar.<br><br>I spent my REI dividend on the MSR MIOX, which will allow me to purify dog-team quantities of water, but you know how it is, they slop up any little puddle they come across. Plus, the negative reports about MIOX from the "other" website leave me a bit distraught.

No worries, David. If I can help even one other dog, I'm happy to be asked at this point. Thanks for the pointer on the MIOX, as I we still have Max's ski and hiking pal Sasha to keep going. This has been a tough way to learn be more vigilant, though as you say it's tough to prevent all possibility of infection with dogs. The only 100% protection I can think of is to keep them from a lot of the things they love so much (e.g. a swim in a creek or pond on a hot day!?), which is not a tradeoff I'd make. Still, I'll be much more vigilant now than I'd ever been before.