Just an update on Tucker.
First, Dr. Meyer is not at the top of my list anymore. This happened early in my quest to keep Tucker around, but after the assessment, she told me to put him down as most of you know by now. She followed up with me a couple weeks later and I told her I was working with a trainer and who he was. She was familiar with George and his methods and assumed we were using an e-Collar. At the time, we were not, which surprised her. Shortly thereafter, I got a letter from her reiterating her recommendations except it included an offer to provide services for treatment via medication. I was a little put off that she told me to kill my dog and then comes back, once she realized I intended to save him at all cost, and offered her services to help me.
I've had 2 private sessions with George C o c k r e l l [this forum seems to think his last name is dirty for whatever reason…. :)] and I am at the midpoint in a 6 session group class on Saturdays. If you didn't know, George told me that Tucker is not an aggressive dog and that he bites out of fear. His regime is to help me train Tuck to a high degree of discipline at which point the bite situations can be controlled (in addition to other methods, like muzzle and crate). I've nearly got him accustomed to his crate, he sleeps in it every night now and makes it through most nights without trying to get into our bed. The muzzle training went fine, but I haven't be in a situation that I had to put it on him in a while, so I suspect I'll need to put it on him more lest he forget what it is. I have only closed the crate door once and he freaked out when he woke up. I will try closing it again soon.
There was a hiccough in the training. In addition to everything else this dog has been through, he suffered a lens luxation in his right eye. For those of you not savvy on your opthalmology, a lens luxation is when the ligaments holding the lens in place fail, and the lens breaks loose and floats around in the eye. The lens has moved forward and does not appear to want to go back behind the pupil and it's starting to kill his cornea cells (turning them milky). He's going to go blind in that eye, eventually. He's just started to bump into a few things. I imagine this will improve as he gets used to losing his right side vision. After 7 or more trips to the opthalmologist at The Hope Center in Vienna, Va, we elected to treat with drugs for this eye over the microsurgery ($4500) to remove the lens in addition to drops for the good eye in a preventative nature. The surgery can complicate things worse than they are now, even if successful, requiring more surgery and even quicken his losing the eye and, subsequently, another surgery to remove it. According to the opthalmologist, if one eye luxates, the other typically follows. There is no time connection between eyes, though. Our plan is to continue drug treatment (drops) with his right eye. Should the other eye go, we will most likely go with the more aggressive surgery in order to save some vision and risk the complications. VPI will cover about 35% of the cost. All this means that I cannot use the training methods George had outlined for us and we had to change midstream. Initially, I used the plastic pinch collar all class attendees use, but now I've gone with the Sit Means Sit e-Collar. The opthalmoligist said I need to minimize any constriction on his neck because it increases the pressure on the jugular, which increases the eye pressure that could lead to accelerated glaucoma. I know a lot of you would disagree with this approach, but we tried it and there is no aggressive response from Tucker, just obedience, reinforcing George's assessment of Tucker and somewhat detracting Dr. Meyer's assessment. Yes, Tucker is a biter, but it's not because he's an aggressive dog. The collar I got was the SportDog 800SMS (the Sit Means Sit collar created by Fred Hassen and SportDog). It can be dialed down to virtually nothing. Yes, I tried the collar myself and on the lowest setting, I couldn't even feel it, but Tucker recognizes it and responds. He is also sporting a new RuffWear harness. He's a handsome boy in his new walkwear. 
So, as of now, we've just started the training all over again using the e-collar in place of the plastic pinch.
Presently, my wife and I have agreed to keep Tucker until we have a child, which could be anytime between 9 months from now to never. My mom, who lives alone, has agreed to take Tucker and continue his training should we have a child. Tucker will live out his life.
A couple things to note. Tucker would only bite (with few exceptions) if he was touched on the head by a stranger, or someone he was not familiar with. On the third group training class, after 1 private class and during the 2nd private class, Tucker approached George and sat against him. George was able to pet Tucker and grasp and stroke his head like Tuck was his own dog. No negative reaction from Tucker at all. Additionally, I cut Tucker's toenails a few nights ago. Something I've never been able to do without fearing a bite from him…even me, knowing his limits. Yes, he raised his lip a bit at me, but he made no grumblings about it. That, my Basenji friends, is BIG progess if you knew this dog.
Lastly, on a potentially down note, Tucker has started developing lumps at various locations on his body. I'm hoping for the best but fearing the worst. He has a dime sized lump on his chest, a quarter sized lump on his side (between his ribs and his hind leg web) and there's another dime sized one behind his armpit, on the side of his ribcage. The stick out just a bit, but I can feel them pretty easily. I'm hoping these are simply lipomas. It would devastate me if, after all of this, he developed the big C. That is the one battle I have no hope of winning. His vet appointment is this Thursday evening. I've had one removed from him before that started to impede his ability to walk. It grew to about half the size of a golf ball before I had it removed. It was benign.
