Jack's experience with Vetoryl has been nothing but good. His cortisol levels are checked regularly by the vet and continue to be within normal ranges. Admittedly all cases are different, and so you need to liase closely with your Vet as to what constitutes the best option for you and your quadruped (assuming they have got four and not three legs - a triped!) But for our part as a family and for Jack, Vetoryl has worked great. He began to improve almost immediately we started him on the tablets, and he just kept right on improving. His pot-belly subsided a bit, he didn't need to get up in the night as often to go to the toilet, and most importantly he perked up and became himself again. With Jack at least this involves a complex procedure of rolling on top of toys and flinging them in the air in order to make them squeak. Or else chasing balls. And the fact that he now feels like doing this is a great compliment to his renewed vigour.

The only real drawbacks have been that it is an ongoing treatment and a relatively expensive one at that (about £80 to £150 a month depending on the size of dog). However, it does at least work, and that makes the inevitable walletectomy slightly easier to bear. Not that any of this financial sacrifice impresses Jack much. He is a sneaky little soul and we are constantly having to think of new and devious foodstuffs in which to hide the pill. Pieces of Mars bar, ham and cheese have been firm favourites in the past; but our latest and greatest discovery is Snickers bars because the pieces of nut fool Jack's brain into not being able to tell the difference between the pill and the peanuts. The problem is folks that Jack still thinks we are trying to poison him! And it is not uncommon to see him saunter gaily across the room looking the very picture of an innocent. Only to find the poison pill conveniently secreted behind the sofa! This is undoubtedly part of the old boys charm though. If I am still as tricky at 107 with my nurses, I will be a happy man.

Jack did have some health scares around Christmas unrelated to Cushings. He had a stroke that the vet put down to high blood pressure, and gave him some tablets for. He then proceeded to have two further attacks whilst on the blood pressure pills, and we were glad that they were only a two week course of treatment because they seemed to make matters worse. There were a few bleak times that I wasn't sure it was going to be a Happy Christmas after all. Thankfully the turnaround came when my Dad decided to put Jack on a course of Ginkgo Biloba tablets.