December with my dog

I'm surprised to see I haven't posted any updates on Penny's day-to-day life since October 6th. Where did October and November go?

Anyway, there is one thing to report for November - Penny had a long-overdue haircut. Here she is, energised after the visit to her lovely groomer, Gabby.

Penny has never been fond of being groomed, but when I took her for a walk prior to going into the salon, she tugged me down the driveway into Gabby's place. That's what I call 'voting with your feet'! Gabby has a gift for making Penny relaxed and happy.

It had been cool for November, so I covered her with a blanket the first couple of nights, as she has quite a thin coat.

I didn't have to do that for long. December arrived with a vengeance, and hot, hot weather landed on us. It was too hot, even at night, to walk, so I drove to Kepala to give her a swim. I loaded up a big container of  water in a cooler in case the car broke down, because I don't think she could deal with 38°C these days. She was panting in the back seat, even with the air conditioner going, but we got there safely after the 50 minute drive.

It was worth it.

The rules specify that humans are not allowed past the blue line, so I took that as a definite instruction to wade in up to the blue line. (When I wasn't taking a break in the shaded hut.)

It's not only about keeping cool. The benefits of swimming are wonderful for old dogs with joint problems. Look at how she stretches her limbs when she swims.

Penny the super duper vet client

Penny needed x-rays to figure out what is going on with her awful limping. It felt bad last Friday to give her no breakfast, but of course, if she was going to be sedated for the x-rays, we had to do it.

But what do you know? When we picked her up the vet told us she was such an amazing client that he didn't even need to sedate her, because she lay so super still in each position.

What a champion.

Well, the results were inconclusive. No obvious spinal problems. Maybe some disk change.

It's all a worry, but at the moment she's walking well and seems happy. We're just going on short strolls rather than our usual walks, but that's okay, as long as she's getting better.

I'm going to check out another swimming place, because our usual one is closed for pool cleaning in August.

Penny might be limping

Once again, we're wondering whether Penny is limping.

Because of the hot weather, we have taken shorter walks lately, which could be a good chance for Penny to rest a sore limb.

When I went out with her yesterday, I think I finally established that she is nodding her head as she steps on her left front leg, which would mean the pain is in the right front leg, according to this site.

Usually a dog will come down heavier on his healthy limb and avoid putting substantial weight on the limb that is bothering him. You can identify this by observing your dog's head when he walks. The comfortable limb will be placed on the ground and his head will go down at the same time. His head will tend to come up when the uncomfortable limb is on the ground.

She'll go to one of our favourite swimming spots, today, because in the water she can exercise without stressing a sore limb.  

When she comes home, we'll examine her nails and see if they are longer on one leg, because on this site I read:

Pets with rear leg pain often cary those legs father forward than normal and their hip on the affected side a bit higher. Pets with front led pain are often reluctant to move. When pets favor a leg over time, the toenails on that limb tend to be longer than on the others. That may be enough to identify the limb that is causing its abnormal walk.

Penny is still keen to go for walks and hurries in and out to the backyard when we go outside. She's been chasing toys in the park eagerly for the last few months, a practice we cut back after her surgery for a cruciate tear four years ago. (We throw the toy only a short distance, and along the ground, so that she runs straight with no swerving or sudden stops.)

She's been taking daily doses of Glyde joint supplement for eight years, so here's hoping the limp is only a temporary problem. A friend suggested that sometimes it's a good idea to give a dog a course of pain relief for a week and see if her behaviour changes. If the limp doesn't go away, we'll go to the vet and discuss options.

physical therapies in the treatment of dogs

PetMD has a great article today on physical therapy for pets.

When Penny damaged her cruciate ligament, I searched for reliable information about what to do, and I would have loved to have read this article.

Eventually we settled on a traditional repair of her cruciate ligament damage, and were happy with the surgery, but the vets did not emphasise the necessity for follow-up therapy. However, from research on the Net we decided it would be helpful.

I'm glad we did, because I don't believe Penny would have recovered as well as she did, without the underwater treadmill, swimming and canine physiotherapy. We followed it up with a long period of home therapy, using exercises given to us by the canine physiotherapist, from Dogs in Motion. (And I'm excited to see that Dogs in Motion now has a blog!)

Dr. James St. Clair's home therapy booklet was a godsend also, and it became our bible for more than a year.

Penny still swims regularly, but looking back through my blog to compose this post has alerted me to the fact that perhaps we should also be doing ongoing home therapy. I'm going over right now to check out the Dogs in Motion blog.

mystery of river levels in the Yarra

Today the Yarra was low.

As we walked along we were astonished to see a big branch sitting on the muddy bank, exposed from tip to tip.






Usually it looks like this. As it did yesterday.



Seeing we were at one of Penny's two favorite swimming spots, she headed on down to the water and swam happily for a stick, but we didn't like to see her slogging through the deep, soft mud, given that she had surgery on her cruciate sixteen months ago.

So moved on to the other spot, where the strangely low water has exposed rocks, not mud.



Melbourne Water has been working for months to rebuild the old weir at Dights Falls. Their site says:

The Waterways Alliance, on behalf of Melbourne Water, is completing works to replace the ageing Dights Falls Weir and build a new fishway on the Yarra River in Abbotsford.

The new weir will be similar in shape, location and height to the existing structure and continue an important role controlling water levels in the river.

A new fishway will allow fish to swim past the weir, benefiting 11 species of native migratory fish and unlocking vast reaches of the Yarra and its tributaries upstream.

And...

A temporary diversion of the Yarra has been set up at Dights Falls to allow the construction of the new weir and fishway. The diversion will be in place until the new weir has been constructed and will cause river levels for up to 16 kilometres above the weir to temporarily drop below normal levels on occasions.

The drop in river level will cause sections of river bank, usually under water, to become exposed.

So that seems to be the answer to the mystery.

swimming as a means of relieving a limp

Penny's been having a quieter time than usual lately, because she developed a nasty limp last weekend. It was a long weekend, so we couldn't go to our own vet, which made us decide to let her rest and see if it improved. (She didn't seem to be in pain if she was resting.)

It has in fact improved a lot, so I decided to try her out on a swim at Kepala Canine County Club, in their warm indoor pool. We've been to the canine resort previously with Cindy's dog-walking group and, long ago, with the Kintala Club, but had never gone alone, so it was a bit of a discovery adventure.

I was late, because I overlooked the fact that our city's population is growing at the rate of about 100,000 a year, with the result that traffic is SLOWER than last time I travelled to Diggers' Rest!

But when we arrived, it was great fun and well worth the longish trip. Seeing I'd had a swimming lesson with Penny at Kepala in the past, I was allowed to supervise her myself, but when she was a bit nervous about walking down the ramp, I thought for a moment I'd have to abandon our session and come back another time for a proper lesson.



Feeling a bit tentative, I decided to attach her lead and walk beside her, but soon realised I was pulling her slightly off-balance and making her nervous. So I took the lead off.


Once I threw her treasured Whirlwheels in, close to the point where the ramp led into the water, she was off and swimming freely.



We had a half-hour booking, and I wondered whether she would swim that long, but not only did she swim happily for thirty minutes in the warm pool, but right when I was reluctantly thinking about leaving she climbed out for the final time and went to the gate to show me it was time to stop throwing her toy. She must be a mind-reader!



Next I got her to walk up the convenient steps to the hydrobath.



I washed her with the nice new cake of soap my sister bought from Warbotanicals a little soap shop in Warburton, and tried unsuccessfully to understand how to make the hairdryers work. No idea. Maybe next time we will have a proper drying session. Fortunately the car heater has a strong warm current, so she dried off on the slo-o-o-w drive home.

swimming with a water-skiing rope leash

When Penny and were spending the day in the Upper Yarra Valley today, we went across to the river for a swim, and we found it a scene of activity. A bunch of kids from a Melbourne school were canoeing down the river and a man was fishing. A bit surprising, as we usually have this spot to ourselves.



However, neither group had a problem with Penny swimming at the same time, so in she went, chasing her absolutely favorite floating toy, the Whirl Wheel. Given that she won't return it right to the bank, but stays in the shallow water waiting for me to throw another one, I always have two.

I had a terrible fright once, when Penny raced off from this swimming spot and crossed a busy highway, so I've been making sure she is on a floating lead when she swims.




Of course, I have to make sure it doesn't snag on anything, but this spot is a clear pool and not too deep for me to jump in if there's a problem. However, there is a little issue if Penny ends up in the water with two whirlwheels. She swims in circles, trying to 'herd' them in to shore.

It's amusing watching her circling around with the rope making a trail behind her.

renovations to the pond in Darebin Parklands

Well, after more than a year of arguments, meetings, discussions, demonstrations, rallies, it has finally started - the redevelopment that will ban Penny and her mates from the traditional dog swimming pond in Darebin Parklands. As far as I know, the pond was originally edged with giant rocks so dogs wouldn't destroy the banks as they went into the lovely deep water.





Here are a couple of shots of Penny enjoying her favorite swimming hole.






Usually the water was just at a good height for jumping in, but on one occasion there was a flood and even the rocky bank was under the swirling waves.



It made me feel sad to see the machines moving in and the non-native trees being removed.



And those lovely rocks, on which we've had so much fun, dug out.






Let's hope the sacrifice is worth it, and that the creek's water quality is improved by the works that are taking place. Water is the land's life blood, as we remember every summer - we have to value anything that improves the ability of our waterways to stay healthy.

Time will tell...

roman beach just for dogs

Slavenka has posted a link to a lovely photo of dogs in Rome jumping into the Tiber in a beach that is just for dogs!

Wow! Lucky dogs!

dogs walk in the lovely rain in Darebin Parklands

Rain, lovely rain has been falling in drought-stricken Melbourne for the last twenty- four hours.

We set off to see how it has affected the Darebin creek in our parkland - and found the creek is reaching the top of its banks. Our favorite swimming hole usually looks like this:



But today it looked like this:



In the second photo you can see just the top of the rocks on the left of the first photo.

The creek looked rather scary so we kept Penny on lead along the path, even though it's an off-lead area. I'm glad we did, because the ball she was holding in her mouth dropped into the raging waters and she lunged after it. It took a bit of convincing to get her to acknowledge that it was gone for good!

When we got to the bridge we usually cross to get back home we realised we'd have to take the long route today:



That's the bridge in the centre of the picture, surrounded by the junk that came down with the flood waters.

And guess what? As we made our way along the path, what did we see?



Yes, our tennis ball, caught in the flotsam!

We saw other dogs walking with their people, but it seemed as if only dog walkers were out braving the rain.