March 9, 2010: Week 14 and all is well

Winston is allowed anywhere in the house except for beds.  He thinks this stinks.  We figured if his leg bone was only 80% healed at 12 weeks, it's best to wait until at least 16 weeks before we risk him hopping off of one of the beds.  He's still got a lot of muscle atrophy in his left back leg, and a little bit in his right hind leg, but with any luck and a little time and some more PT exercises that will get better. 

I've started Winston (and Josie because whatever he does, she wants to do too -- especially when there's biscuits involved) back on some of his physical therapy exercises at home.  Also when we encounter people (with or without dogs) on our walks, I'm asking both my dogs to sit while the other folks go by.  I need some more practice with timing on that one.  If I give them the biscuits too soon, they'll both stand up and bark or lunge.  This is new behavior since Winston had all of his surgeries and Josie joined our family.  I think it starts with her, but I could be wrong.  I can tell that Winston isn't as trusting of people as he was before all of this.  Anyway, distracting and bribing them with biscuits seems to be working, so hopefully with time they'll just focus on me instead of whatever's going on around them.

After our afternoon walk, Winston gets some off-leash time in the back yard.  I take him out on the leash and wait until Josie has run around looking for any stray bunnies that might be in the yard, and then I let him off the leash.  So far so good with this.  He has done a few trots and a little gentle run from time to time but so far not a lot of activity and no full-out "get the bunny" running.  I won't let him in the front yard until he's built up his leg muscles a bit more. 

March 4, 2010: Things that go bump in the night still scare me

I happened to wake up at 4:00am this morning and while I was dozing trying to fall back asleep, I thought I heard a noise downstairs.  It wasn't loud and I kept listening and didn't hear anything more.  I guess I fell back asleep because next thing I knew, the "cat alarm" was going off at 6:15.  Our cat, Tyler's internal clock is a little off and he starts each day by loudly complaining that we haven't fed him his canned breakfast treat.  Sometimes he starts this behavior at 3:00am.  Lately he's been closer to the correct time, but that could have something to do with me chasing him down the hall telling him that it's not time, and he needs to be quiet.

Anyway, my first thought after being slightly annoyed with Tyler, was about Winston.  Was that noise I heard him falling somewhere?  We gave him full stair privileges last week, and since then both of us have been really worried that he's going to fall down them again, or that he's going to hurt himself coming upstairs to let us know that he needs to go potty (Winston likes to spend the night on the couch downstairs since he's still not allowed on the beds).  Don's been leaving a light on so that the stairs aren't completely dark.

When I got up to check on them, I found both dogs downstairs on the couch together, so I have no idea what the noise was.  I'm just thankful that it wasn't Winston.

He's doing really well, and having an easier time walking.  He still doesn't totally engage the pad on that foot when he's standing, but he's getting closer.  I tried a little off leash time in the yard after a long walk this week for the first time, but he wanted to run so I put his leash back on and we went back into the house.  I'll try it again soon, but maybe without Josie out in the yard.