Kennel Sons of North

06/02/2026

After almost 2 years of vet visits & medications happy to announce that Opie has been cleared of spondylitis 💚

Unfortunately, he is still not completely 100 % and he has some pain every now and then.

Vets don’t really agree if he would have mild arthritis or not, but we have decided to start couple of things that in mind.

He is getting a new orthopedic bed and Back on Track cover on top of the bed.

Welltex is a textile technology by Back on Track that reflects radiant body heat as far infrared radiation. The technology uses the reflective properties and emission spectrum of ceramic particles in a proprietary solution found exclusively in Back on Track products. And there has been several studies that shown this is helpful for preventing injuries in sport animals. And it can be helpful for arthritis too.

We are also trying new brand of joint supplements.

And we have consultation with some rehab to try out cold therapy and some other things that could be beneficial for him.

I am hoping with these things we can get him completely healthy again 🥰

Opie 💚

05/16/2026

Jax 💙

Couple of weeks ago I took Jax for an echocardiogram.

He has no issues with his heart and they have never noticed a heart murmur but I wanted to do this for research and future breeding purposes.

No evidence for congenital heart disease 💙

They did find MMVD (age related).

Myxomatous Mitral Valve Disease (MMVD) causes the mitral valve to thicken and leak, leading to backward blood flow (mitral regurgitation) and an enlarged heart.

Cardiologist said that she sees MMVD a lot in older dogs and no medication or treatment is needed.

She also said that it’s not common to bring 12 year old dog for echo and that he is in a great condition 🥰

This is actually the same cardiologist who has now echoed 5 of my dogs/puppies.

She was like I was pretty sure that it was your dogs when I saw the breed on my list.

We also talked about my other dogs and heart conditions in general and the memories me crying in her office when Tara was diagnosed came back quickly 😂

Now from my current pack only Opie is missing his echo and if I would ever breed him, I would definitely get that done as well.

The echo results will show abnormal on OFA database but cardiologist said that MMVD is more common that people think.

Age related MMVD like Jax has means the valves gets weaker due to age and it leaks when it open and closes.

She said it’s nothing that we need to worry about and she said honestly when a dog is in this great condition and over 12 years old - especially in large breed - this is not the norm and we should be very happy 🥰

I always knew Jax has heart of gold 💓

04/18/2026

04/18/2026

04/14/2026

Now when Ally has been gone for several weeks, the house seems so quiet and calm.

This time has made me realize how nice it is to have dogs like Tara 🥰

She truly is the best pet dog that you could ask for.

Super velcro dog but so easy to live with. She would probably make a great therapy dog 🐶

She would not be a good service dog, because she would react to every and each emotion that the handler would have 🤭

She is so good with everything else though except the wild life which we are learning SLOWLY to leave alone.

I have a feeling that she would be natural in herding. It’s sad that in our area there aren’t any herding classes that would allow us to give it a try.

I contacted one local herding class and they said they have a weight restrictions for the herding dogs 😅

But she is the perfect hiking buddy as she doesn’t care about others around her (unless they are too pushy).

It surprises people when they see her telling others enough is enough as she is so sweet and but she has a dark side for sure 😂

She doesn’t really have a need to run our pack, but every once in a while when she decides to do that - the boys step away from her way.

People have asked me if I would rehome her because she is now spayed and the answer is maybe. If I found a farm that she could run wild and free rest of her days and have 1 or 2 humans that she could be obsessed with. Maybe I might consider it. But she has given me so much and I am obsessed about her easy & sweet temperament and it would be super difficult to think about her being anywhere else.

Mountain Wolves Olympia Star 🩷 My first female and special for so many reasons 💕

11/05/2025

Opie update 💚

Journey figuring out what is wrong with Opie has been long.

As I shared previously he had weird back pain and I eventually took him for X-rays January 2025.

The Xrays showed signs of change in the spine but the cause was unknown and there was no diagnosis.

He then went off to neurologist and surgeon who both agreed that they didn’t see any signs of arthritis (which was first one possibility). He was given medication and he felt better and didn’t have pain.

During this summer he lost a ton of weight and his appetite was gone.

We took whole panel of blood tests and while everything was normal, there were signs that he was fighting some type of infection. Again couldn’t get proper diagnosis.

September I decided to try out ct scan because it will give more answers.

And the day of the ct scan the machine broke down 🤦🏻‍♀️

Then we waited another 3 weeks to schedule it again.

Ct scan results came back with diagnosis: discospondylitis

Most common cause of discospondylitis is brucellosis.

Probably the worst thing that as breeder you need to worry about.

Brucellosis is a contagious bacterial infection that can cause a number of reproductive problems, including infertility and abortion in breeding dogs. Female dogs infected with brucellosis develop an infection of the uterus. And worst of all - there is no cure.

As I learned quickly- the dog can get brucellosis even though they haven’t been bred.

Then the painful wait for the test results started for brucellosis.

After days not hearing from the lab, our repro vet called the lab asking why the test results were not back yet and apparently there was a mixup in the lab with Opie’s sample 😞

Yesterday finally received the tests results and it was negative 💙

Even though the cause is still unknown, we are starting him on antibiotics try to clear the infection out.

As we have ruled out brucellosis, 2 other causes are bacterial and fungal.

Spondylitis should not be confused with spondylosis which is a different spine condition.

However the recovery is long and he will need Xrays taken every couple of months to see that antibiotics are working, he should make full recovery❤️‍🩹