Old dogs and new behaviours

Wow! Nearly two months since I posted about Penny and her adventures.

Well, at her age - and mine - just getting out of the house and walking is an adventure.

We're finding that although twenty minutes' stroll is enough for her, it's not sufficient to maintain our own health, so today we humans took a long, brisk walk separately, after taking Penny to Heide Museum of Modern Art in the morning for an amble around the outside artworks.

Here she is posing in the strangely cool evening. How weird that parts of Australia are burning up in bushfires and other areas are so cold that some are even predicting there could be snow on the mountains at Christmas!

As you'll see in this photo, she's quite grey around the muzzle now. I'm not sure when I noticed that - perhaps it was after her latest clipping. 

physiotherapy for an old dog

Penny seems to have a weakness in her right  rear leg, so we're doing 'reps'. Or maybe we should call them 'sets'. Who'd have thought it would be so complicated being an old dog?

Anyway, Penny doesn't care what we call them. She just wants to eat the food she's offered. (Usually little bits of raw carrot.)

She puts her front paws up on a little stool.

I tap her left rear leg and she lifts it and I support it gently, not taking her weight, but just reminding her to keep it in the air.

Seeing she's totally focused on gobbling the food, she seems to hardly notice she has her weight on her weak leg. 

I think it might be working, because she jumped from the footpath into the back seat of the car recently, the first time in months we haven't lifted her in.

I wish she didn't lick her paws, though. You can see how stained they are. We're working on that problem too.

mental stimulation for an old dog

A  friend sent me a newspaper cutting about canine freestyle, and it reminded me of the fun Penny and I used to have when we were both younger.

I  sent my friend an old clip of us at a canine freestyle club, in the days when that was a new sport for Australia. OMG. It was NINE years ago! Now I know Penny and I are old...

Anyway, it got me thinking about the fact that I worry that life is boring for Penny now, because her creaky limbs probably aren't up to twisting and turning. We might have a go  at some modified canine freestyle, but our floors are slippery and I'd have to set up carpets.

In the meantime, an internet search for something to do has turned up this fun sport, canine nose work. This clip shows the progression of some simple home training and we're  going to try it soon.

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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