"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love and leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion"
Author: Unknown
Last week I received an email telling me to take Winston's recovery hour by hour and notice any improvements he made. That suggestion has helped me a lot in getting through the dim periods. There have not been many, if only a couple of dim periods due to the little things he does in his recovery, still that "hour by hour" mentality is a good one.
Even though I was excited about seeing his right leg bent around 11:34am today. I also took the leg and gently flexed it in a normal range of motion without any yelping from Winston -- no sign of pain while I did that. There was other excitement though from Sadie and Stella. It wasn't quite noon.
Only 4-1/2 hours after their last meal, they were more excited about getting me to serve them lunch about an hour early and BEFORE noon. They both like Winston but when you are talking food, then everything else stops. This is the look Sadie and Stella will give me before Stella starts her howling if I don't respond with food.
It was a restless afternoon for Winston. Highly active, wanting out of that gated area. He didn't want on the couch, nor on the floor and not in his bed area. He wanted outside and went outside about every 30 minutes for almost 2 hours. Luckily it was a beautiful day, sunny, no wind, cool temps but warm enough to melt the frost on the grass.
Finally Winston takes me out to the far edge of the field. He was still showing the 'walking motion' with this rear legs as we headed toward the back of the field. I knew what he wanted. Around the spot he chose, nothing happened with me holding him with the harness. So I decided "what's a couple of feet of scooting really going to do?"
He went about a foot in distance, rowing with this right rear paw on the ground ... getting done what he has been trying to do all morning.
Back inside he was still whining a little. I think he was feeling that good today and wanted to take off wandering outside. Instead I pulled out my Marmot sleeping back and threw it over the top of him. I think it's his favorite blanket. He moved himself deep inside and went to sleep. No gate was needed.
After another trip outside ... it was a quick one as he only went the gravel driveway ... he came back and was pretty happy that I had let him use my sleeping bag again. No gate now and he stayed around, but it's the sleeping bag doing that. He would move around a different couple of positions. His last one put him outside the bag ... but he was happy to get back under with my help. He slept for quite a while in that position.
My barricade is still working okay. It's a baby gate in front just leaning again the corner of the wall and my portable heater which is not turned on. Next to that is a box with a DVD recorder inside that I bought but haven't used. Behind those sides I sat two 15# dumbbells to hold them because had figured out if he nosed his way between the box and heater he was on the highway to freedom. So far the dumbbells have prevented that.
It wasn't a few hours later and I hear noise coming from his area of the living room. He decided he had enough of sleep and wanted to move around. I take this restlessness as a sign of healing. He has never been this confined this long since he was a 8 week old puppy. I am guessing the more he wanted to "walk" the better he feels and the closer we are to him standing on his rear legs.
From this photo, I carried him to the couch. For the first time I can remember he laid on his RIGHT SIDE and has been sleeping every since, submerged between two Mexican blankets.
The weather was great today in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana.
