Happy 10th Birthday Dragonheart!

Today Dragonheart celebrates his 10th birthday!  10 years!  A major milestone!

We are very happy that Dragonheart is celebrating his 10th birthday!  For a long time, we didn't know if he would make it to 10.  So we are very, very glad that he has!

When he was about a year and a half old, Dragonheart developed a really high fever of unknown origin, and was on IV fluids at the vet for a long time.  They never figured out what caused the fever, but Dragonheart fully recovered, which is what mattered.

Then a couple of years later, Dragonheart was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and after having an ultrasound of his heart completed, he was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).  Fortunately Dragonheart's HCM has not progressed since that time, and at his last heart scan, he was "equivocal" for HCM, which means there was some abnormalities in his heart muscle, but not enough to classify him as having HCM, and no need for medications.  We continue to just monitor his heart with periodic scans.

Dragonheart has had quite an exciting life so far!  He was born in Frankfurt, spent the first four years of his life in Munich, travelled to Switzerland for a week's vacation, flew across the ocean from Germany to Canada, drove across a good chunk of Canada from Quebec to Alberta, then back again a year later (although only to Southern Ontario).

In honour of Dragonheart's 10th birthday, we are having a comment-a-thon for SOAR - Sphynx Open Arms Rescue.  Sadly there are some Sphynx, like our sister Devi, who do end up in rescue.  Mainly because people don't realize that Sphynx can be a lot of work and require a lot of attention!  Devi was deemed "too affectionate" for example. Other people don't realize how much bathing and cleaning we need, or that we can leave our Sphynx oils on fabrics, leaving brown stains.  For every comment we receive on this post until midnight July 18, 2016, Eastern Daylight Time, we will make a $0.50 donation to SOAR.  Only one comment per blog or household.

Now on to the party!  We have toys, food, and treats for both our cat and dog friends, and have some greens to nibble on for any other friends who visit (rabbits and smaller animals).

On to the contest!   The contest is to correctly identify which of these photos are of Dragonheart.  A number of them are of Dragonheart, and a number are of Merlin and Devi.  You have to guess which ones belong to Dragonheart.  The person who guesses them all right will win a digital scrapbook page made by our mom.  If no one guesses them all correct, then it will be whomever guesses the greatest number correctly.  You have until Friday to make your guesses.  You can email them to us at dragonheart.sphynx@gmail.com with the subject line: Birthday Contest.  Good luck everyone!  At least one of them should be super-easy.  Another couple should be pretty obvious whose photo it is.  The rest might be tricky!  We will tell you that four of the photos belong to Dragonheart.

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We have some visitor cards (in two sizes) for you to take if you like.  Thank you for celebrating Dragonheart's 10th Birthday with us!