I weighed Reko last week, at 6.5 months he was 20 kg (44 pounds) and not a gram of extra fat on him… He is about 52-53 cm (20.5 in) high.

Reko got to meet our local vet sooner than planned, he cut his paw when out this morning. He got a couple of stitches and a bright yellow bandage. He was good little patient at the vets.

This evening I also saw him loosing one of his molars, he has already changed his front teeth but the canines a still puppy teeth.

We went to a vet clinic in Helsinki and Riva had an ERG test. Electroretinogram measures the electrical activity of the retina and I wanted to get more information of the level his eyesight is affected currently. Also, very little is known of PRA in aussies, so I thought we would gather as much information on Riva’s case as possible for future reference.

The results showed, as expected, that the responses are weaker than normal and typical of PRA. However, considering his full history from eye exams, the eye specialist thought the rate of progress could be fairly slow and what’s left of his eyesight may last a good while. Let’s hope so and at least so far, if you ask Riva, there is nothing wrong with his eyes….

I finally recieved results of Riva’s gene test from Optigen and it confirms that he is prcd-PRA affected. Eventhough it is sad to have confirmation that he is sick, the news are also a relief because now we know for sure what we are dealing with. The heredity of prcd-type PRA is known and there is a gene test. His offspring will not develop PRA and the breeders can continue the line if they wish, they just need to pick mates that are non-carriers for prcd-PRA.

We went to the Opvet sperm bank to get sperm collected for freezing from Riva and there is now five doses (11 straws) of frozen sperm in store. A couple of doses are already spoken for but a few are still available if someone is intrested.