Thursday, August 19, 2010

3 Week Update

So, we're at 3 weeks post surgery today for Drake.
Whew! Things are kinda hard some of the time. Maybe a lot of the time.

Today was good. At the two week check up with the vet, Dr. Masan had said Drake could start swimming five minutes a day…in a week. That was a week ago, so today we put his bright yellow life vest on him and took him to the lake, where he got to motor around for five minutes.

Swimming for exercise really isn't his thing: he's more of a "get exercise by chasing/chewing/etc." kind of dog. But we did swim out a ways, and round about, and it was good to see him moving more smoothly.

What's been hard has been the fact that he's feeling better and better, and is only supposed to walk….one block per day. We've broken that up, and taken 30 minutes to go to the mailbox and back. (Literally. I timed it.) And I'll sit with Drake in the sun for blocks of time: probably two hours a day. But he's going crazy from inactivity, and is starting to jump around, which is absolutely forbidden.

Today we got to add five minutes of swimming, and another block of walking, each day. That's a five minute swim and two blocks of walking, plus peeing. That's not so much for a dog that used to get 80-100 minutes of walk, 40+ minutes of swim (and play in the weeds near the water, plus go outside to chase squirrels whenever he wanted).

Everyone's sanity's wearing a little thing.

But the swim helped, and Drake was a big hit at the two week check up. All the workers came out to see him, and he wanted, god help us all, to tackle a big dog to play.

So…I'm tired. Kathy's tired. Drake's tired of being inside invalid dog.

Sigh.
Greg

No comments:

Post a Comment