Physical Therapy Flop

Riley usually does well during her physical therapy.  It isn’t painful to her and she’s still really flexible and muscular.  She lets me flex and extend her leg, no problem.  She’s supposed to have it done for 10 minutes at a time…she gets a little silly after about 6 minutes and decides it’s time to roach around on her back and get a belly rub…and greet me (as if she hasn’t just been spending time with me).

No worries…she’s on a leash.  I’m sitting on it.

 Doing well!

 Oh no…here we go!  I can’t help but laugh…I will be such a bad parent if I ever have human kids!

 Now it’s time to visit with Momma…

Oh my gosh…on her hind legs!!!!!  I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no…

Even more excitement happened outside in the backyard yesterday…  It was dark (only like 5:00 yet dark as everything…sigh) and I had a flashlight in my hand and her leash.  Riley was intent on sniffing this one spot in the yard–like nose straight in the ground sniffing–and I dragged her away from it and back onto the patio where there’s a water bowl.  She hasn’t been drinking a whole lot of water, so I refresh the water outside a couple of times a day and encourage her to drink it.  She walked behind my back so I went to switch the leash to my other hand to straighten it out just as Riley decided she needed to make her way back over to that wonderful-smelling spot in the yard…pulled the leash right out of my hand and she trotted on over to the spot in the yard about 20 feet away.

Luckily she only trotted and didn’t go running or sprinting over there and luckily she also didn’t realize that I wasn’t holding the leash anymore.  I told her to stay and went over to her and stepped on her leash, then picked it up.  I could just envision all the dollar signs–failed surgery, another surgery, 8 more weeks of recovery time/crate rest, etc!!

All seems to be well with her leg though.  I can hardly even see the scar where she had her leg cut open and she’s bearing full weight on both legs equally all the time, no limping or any signs she ever even had a problem with her leg or knee (except for the lack of fur on the leg–they shaved her bald!).  Her fur is starting to grow back though and is growing over the barely-visible incision nicely.  She is nice and quiet in her crate most of the time and seems sort of resigned to it or used to it now.  She’s not by any means thrilled to be confined to the crate 23 hours a day (that other hour [or probably actually less than that] includes potty breaks and 2 physical therapy sessions a day).

Oh, and plus she got a new orthopedic dog bed that fits her new crate and a new KONG Ballistic toy that is surprisingly still all in one piece!

New Digs

3 days of crate rest down, 53 more to go!  (Almost 4 days down).  Speaking of the crate…I discovered that Riley couldn’t exactly stand all the way up in her crate–she’s too dang tall!!  So I went out and got her the next size up, 42″ long x 28″ wide x 30″ high.  She is SO MUCH more comfortable in this crate and is able to stretch out some.  In fact, she just tried hiding her chew toy in her bed.

 Riley’s new digs!

Her leg is looking pretty good.  Sorry for the gross picture!

I never did find the water bowl that clipped to the crate, so we just broke down and spent $2.50 to buy a plastic one that we have hooked to one of the side walls now.  She’s been drinking a good bit of water and has had 2 BM’s since she’s been home–gross, I know, sorry!

Thanks for all the well-wishes and sooner, rather than later, this will all be in the past and she’ll be free to roam the house again!

Ornament Stealer

Riley is now officially an ornament stealer.  We have our Christmas tree in one half of our house that is usually blocked off with baby gates (we’ve got more metal bars in our house than Alcatraz…actually we have 3 metal baby gates up so it does look a little like an armory or something).  We ate dinner in our dining room tonight which is on the Christmas tree half of the house.  Riley was exploring the tree and next thing we knew she had pulled a little pine cone ornament off of the tree.

Luckily after that she left all the other ornaments and the presents alone.  I guess she felt like she was in the great outdoors with the live tree and a pine cone to boot!

Somehow, and this now makes no since to me, Riley was rewarded after dinner with the rest of our snow peas.  She enjoyed them so much.  She even ate them slowly (which she usually scarfs everything down as fast as she can).

Waiting for the “okay” to be released to eat them.

Then it was play time!  Riley got a nylon toy dumbell type thing in her goodie bag from Care-A-Lot the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  She has been enjoying the heck out of destroying and playing with the toy.  Here’s what’s left of it:

That’s right, it just looks like a small hole-y snowball or something.  Maybe this could join Frankie Furter’s snowman collection…?

Oh, and you can see her new bed in the background.  I took it out of her crate so she’d actually use it and will put it back in her crate the next time she has to go in there.  She’s actually laid on in a few times but then decides to move up to the couch.  Oh well.