Penny and the swimming and Bowen therapy

With Penny getting older now, I'm super glad she learned early to enjoy swimming, because taking her for a swim in the lovely warm pool at Kepala Resort is a good way to help her deal with what we think is increasing arthritis.

We are also taking Penny for more frequent Bowen therapy at Bow Rei Me. 

And she's having a series of Cartrophen injections.

Here's hoping she improves. Maybe when warmer weather comes she will improve even more.

PS: While I was checking out the link to Bow Rei Me I saw a post about canine massage. I think I'll read it carefully and go and do some massage for Penny.

arthritis, cartrophen and Bowen therapy

Penny travelled to Yarra Glen today to have another session of Bowen Therapy with Deb.

After we arrived, I went back to the car to get something, and when I returned I found Penny inside the lovely little therapy cottage, happily waiting for Deb. This is not Penny's usual behaviour with anyone else - normally she'd be at the door, looking out to see where I had gone.

Watching Penny in the session is a great way to see how she reacts to the therapy. I sit on a chair nearby and don't interact. In an hour of treatment, she barely glances at me, which is unusual in any other situation, because she's normally keeping an eye on me to see what I'm up to. However, she loves the therapy so much that she's focused on Deb.

After about ten minutes or so, Penny moved away, and Deb waited for her to come back. Soon, Penny stood up, and returned to ask for more. It was plain that she loves it. I find it interesting when Deb tells me the places where Penny is sore, because I can see, once it's pointed out to me, that Deb is correct, by Penny's reaction to therapy in those spots.


We're not depending only on natural therapies to deal with Penny's arthritis. We're also having another series of four cartrophen injections at our vet.

And I was intrigued to discover that one of the vets at our local practice does acupuncture. We'll enquire about that.

a dog enjoys the lovely autumn weather

With the mild weather we're having at the moment, Penny took the opportunity yesterday to relax on the swing on the back patio. It's lovely that her limp is gone. Perhaps the four injections of Cartrophen did the trick. Who knows?

We do still put a little table in front of the swing so Penny won't jar her joints jumping from that height, but otherwise she seems to be enjoying life.

Penny and the Australian Grand Prix

Well, Penny sort of went to the Australian Grand Prix yesterday.

That's to say, she was close to it. We headed off to visit a friend who lives near the St Kilda beachfront, and discovered there's an off-lead dog beach right in front of her apartment. The plan was for Penny and one human to play on the beach while the other human visited her friend.

Wasn't going to happen! Penny was upset that one of the pack had gone missing and spent the first forty minutes tracking up and down alongside the busy roadway. I took her to the beach, but was afraid to let her off-lead as she was so obsessed with finding the lost pack member.

All this was accompanied by the roar of racing cars and the shriek of overflying jets as The Roulettes put on a magnificent display. Penny took no notice. (She has experienced a low fly-over in her flyball days, when our event had to stop because the Roulettes were diving just over the Botanical Gardens where we were racing.)

And the weather was cold! Hooray! After the hottest start to autumn Melbourne has experienced (since detailed records have been kept), I'm loving the cold, wet weather. Not the best day for the beach, but the kite boarders seemed to be having a ball.

And, best of all, we let Penny run around, jump into the waves, chase balls - once the pack was reunited, she lightened up enough to have fun - and she isn't limping the next day!

We'll go and have the third of her weekly cartrophen injection tomorrow.As Honey's human commented on my post a few days ago, this medication is as much about prevention as cure, so we're not expecting sudden results.

Penny and the limp

Penny's limping once more. Or still limping, to be more exact.

After a month of seeing her limp when she gets up from lying down, and having tried complete rest; partial rest; massage; icing her front shoulder, swimming, we decided it was time to go back to the vet.

Of course she had no limp at the vet surgery. It was pretty difficult to assess Penny's gait, seeing she loves her vet so much that she throws herself at his feet all the time for a tummy rub, but he did his best, and of course he did all that disturbing limb manipulation, trying to find the soreness. Penny, like so many other dogs, is incredibly stoic, but the vet concluded that it is indeed her left front shoulder that is giving her trouble. Probably arthritis, sigh...

So she's having a course of cartrophen. One injection each week. She did have this once before, after her cruciate surgery, so we know she can tolerate this medication. The information on the site says it has no side effects, and our vet said the same thing, but I'm cynical enough to think that NOTHING has no side effects. But we'll settle for 'minimal side effects'.

The difference this time is that the vet suggested continuing with 'moderate exercise'. He used to advise resting a troublesome joint, so it was a pleasant surprise to be encouraged to keep her active. Given that in human medication the doctors and physios generally suggest keeping active after injury, I'm glad to get the same advice for Penny.

It's easy to restrain her from over-exercising, because the weather is awful lately. Hot, hot, hot every day. I've never known an autumn like this. Seeing we've just had the hottest summer ever recorded in Australia, it's frighteningly like what the climate change scientists have been predicting.

Good weather for swimming, though, and there's a nice little beach on the Yarra river up at Warringal Parklands.

And another swim at Kepala Canine Resort wouldn't go amiss.