When your dog is old

It's hard enough to admit to myself that I'm old. But to admit that Penny, too, is in her senior years...is confronting.

I was just looking back through my old posts, searching for a photo of a pvc pipe agility jump I'm giving away on Freecycle, and feel quite sad that so many of the fun things Penny and I have done in the past are no longer appropriate. She can't get up on her hind legs, and has quite a lot of arthritis in all limbs, so many favourite tricks are now out of the question, also most agility and indeed, a great deal of the active training.

Here's the agility jump that has made me feel so nostalgic.

On the other hand, recently I came across this skateboard ramp on the side of the road for disposal.

I reckon we could have some fun with that, and what's to stop her doing a little bit of weaving, provided I space the poles far apart? As I've posted previously, I'm a great believer in recycled items as agility equipment. After all, it's free.

I've just read Karen Pryor's post about adapting training to the changes in your old dog. Most encouraging. And I liked a few of the points in this post, also.

Yes, we will still have active fun together!


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dog body language

Today in Darebin Parklands Penny walked with one of her humans (me!) and suddenly realised we were to meet her other human.

Here are some pictures of her body language as she scanned the grassy area.I was interested to see the tail position when she is on alert in a pleasantly excited way.




A browse of the Internet showed lots of sites discussing tail positions in dogs, and the one I found most useful was at the ASPCA. DVM360.com has an interesting article in general on dog body language, and Australian Canine Current Events has an extensive list of sites relating to canine body language.

However, I haven't found an exact match for this particular position.