The ice on our street is starting to melt, so if we can make it across the middle part of the street, we can walk on clear pavement. Before today, it hasn't been bad; the ice is crunchy and has traction. Unfortunately today that changed.
I bundled up the dogs into their coats before we left the house and we walked down the driveway to the street. The driveway is totally clear of snow and ice, but there is a thick patch of ice on the street right at the end of our driveway. Once Winston stepped onto that, all of his feet slipped. Luckily his reaction to slipping was to immediately sit down. I was't sure if he could stand back up safely, but I also wasn't sure how to get him back onto dry pavement so I tried coaxing him back toward me. As soon as he started to stand back up, his feet slid again and he sat back down. I finally ended up grabbing the neck and tail ends of his coat and dragged him back towards me. He slid so easily it was like he was on wet glass. Scary! I got him to the edge of the ice and he stood back up and we walked back up the drive to go into the yard instead.
Winston doesn't think walking around the yard "counts" as a walk, so he's been bugging me to take him out for a real walk. He stands at the baby gate across the top of the stairs and stares at me. Then he'll walk to me and walk back to the baby gate (just to make sure I understood what he was asking). Once we get downstairs, he goes to the front door and isn't happy when I tell him we;re going out back. Of course, once we're out there he's happy enough to walk around both the back and the front yard -- it just doesn't count as a walk.
In the house Winston doesn't really walk on his leg. Outside, he puts weight on it, but in the house he's still treating it like he did before his surgery. I'm not sure if this is just habit or if there's some other reason, but I suspect that it's habit.
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