senior dogs and mental stimulation

Wow! I see I haven't posted since February. And I know why.. It has been so hot that Penny has been less willing to go for a walk.

She has spent most of the time each day snoozing, and we had put that down to her age. Our vet agrees that perhaps she doesn't deal so well with hot weather these days, so we have let her set the pace on walks and if she didn't want to go we'd let her lie. However, we do manage a walk of some sort most days.

Lately, though, it has become cooler, and we're wondering if her sleepiness might be as much due to boredom as to her senior status. So, we're trying to play a few games each evening, and use some of the lovely Nina Ottosson games when feeding her. ( A bit tricky, given that these days we only feed raw meat, with some additions of vegetables and vitamins.)

Also, today I took her for a swim in the warm water of the indoor pool at Kepala.

Afterwards, I asked in the office whether it would be okay for us to pop into the agility area to see how Penny would cope with it. As soon as we stepped through the gate, she headed for the tyre and the tunnel!

Before I even had time to give the 'begin' signal, she was through. I hurried to catch up so she wouldn't jump over the higher items (because of her arthritis.)

She managed the little seesaw like a pro.

And what was that in the distance? A set of weave poles...

Yes, she sort of still remembers how to do them. Hooray! So, next time, after a warm swim to get her muscles loosened, I think we might try this again.

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 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.

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.

Penny meets a famous outback dog

Today when we went to Kepala for a swim, we were joined by Rosie and her human, Jane Coleman. I noticed Rose had difficulty with some movements, and asked Jane whether Rosie had been injured.

It was heart-warming to hear Rosie's story. Jane lived in Alice Springs at the time of Rosie's injury, but was visiting Canberra when she heard her beloved companion seemed to be paralysed.

You can read the story of how Jane abandoned her dream of a national violin tour and raced 5000 kilometres around the country to bring Rosie here to Melbourne for surgery. It seemed Rosie would never walk again, but I can tell you she looked fantastic today at the pool.

After the operation, the next phase of recovery involved ongoing therapy, once more an expensive and stressful time for Jane. You can read about it here.

I felt privileged to spend time with someone who put her life on hold to save her friend.

swimming outdoors at Kepala

Having enjoyed watching Penny swim at the indoor pool at Kepala the other day, I thought we'd head off there again today, and seeing it was a warm sunny day I booked the outdoor pool. I think it's a very good bargain to be able to have the whole pool for thirty minutes and only pay $8.



Here's a dog's eye view of the water. Inviting!



I slapped on plenty of sunblock, because this is the time of the year when we get burned, after a winter of not having to take note of the UV levels. However, when I got there I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Penny was happy to swim around fetching her toys and all I had to do was sit in the shade and watch, occasionally tossing her toys in to the water. As long as the toys were floating she was determined to fetch them all back to dry land.

Here she is, working hard to collect them all. It's rather tricky, because as soon as she gets one to the shore and heads out for the next one, the wash from her passing sweeps it back out into the water. But she did it eventually.

dogs and fitness

We believe it's important to keep up Penny's level of fitness, especially as she had her knee operated on last year. She had the traditional repair of her cruciate ligament, and for about seven months she swam regularly, often twice a week.

Now that we have more confidence that she is recovering well, we've returned to some of our previous activities. The long-awaited return to Cindy's Allsports class has been the highlight of our week. So it was disappointing the see that she had a slight limp after last weekend's class.

It was a hard decision to stop going to the Allsports class, but we will rest from it for a while to make sure she's okay.

So, back to the swimming...

I decided to take her to Kepala Canine Resort, because it's a bit closer than the other pool we've attended for about a year. Also, Penny can play in the water rather than just do therapeutic laps.

One of the things I love about Kepala's indoor pool is the mural. It makes me feel relaxed just to lean back on the fence and look at it.

I also like the fact that the pool is raised above the level of the floor, so I can walk around with Penny and encourage her to swim by racing her for her floating toys. She gets up a real speed when I'm hurrying around the edge to grab the toy. The entry is easy for her, too. There's a raised platform for entry:

She's supposed to enter by the ramp to the right of this photo - although there's a gentle slope, dogs need to be confident enough to push off into deep water when they reach the bottom of the slope. Definitely not a problem for water-loving Penny.

She thinks that's a pretty good place to come out of the water, actually. (But about half the time she did come out at the other end, the correct place for emerging. It depended on which ramp was closer when she reached the toy.)

It's entertaining to throw more than one toy in the pool and watch her organising the retrieval. Eventually she came up with the idea of swimming for one, depositing it on the side, and going back for the next.

She always collected her favorite first, of course - the beloved Whirlwheel.

It was great to discover that her AussieDog Slapathong floats, too!

Penny's Christmas party

At last! Penny is able to go out with other dogs. And, just after Penny reached week 14 after cruciate surgery, it was the day of Cindy's doggie Christmas get-together at Kepala.

My dilemma was that Cindy, quite correctly, told me that Penny needed to be off lead when she was with the other dogs. (And how true it was - Penny curled her lip and snarled at her old friends when I tried to take her into the pool area on lead.) Once she was off-lead she was fine.




So, how to keep Penny from exhausting herself racing in and out of the wonderful pool?



Well, a simple solution. I threw her favorite toy, the Whirl Wheel, which she hasn't set eyes on for four months. Off she swam to get it.



Hurrying, of course, to make sure none of the other dogs beat her to it.



And then, of course, she had to guard it, which mostly involved standing around on the edge of the pool - and, incidentally, resting.



After a few swims, we joined the others who had moved on to the grassy area. I thought Penny might race around with the dogs who were playing chasey, but she preferred to take it quietly with the humans.



And I'm pleased to say she seemed fine the next day.

the pancaked dog effect

Penny seems to be suffering from 'pancaked dog' syndrome. The basic symptom is a necessity to lie flat out on the kitchen floor, head supported by the floor itself, body flat and motionless - unless someone makes toast, in which case the body leaps to attention and levitates instantaneously across the room to appear beside the bread-toasting human.



The symptoms may be the result of a visit to Kepala Canine Country Club, a visit in which the accompanying human kept throwing the floaty toy into the heated pool, so that Penny had to swim to fetch it. No sooner would she forge through the waves to rescue the lost toy and haul it back to shore than the second floaty toy would be hurled to the other end of the pool. Half an hour of this left her tired but happy, but the human couldn't resist the temptation to try out the fenced enclosure where the agility equipment is set out.

Penny goes to a tricks and agility class each Tuesday evening, but there's no seesaw, so it seemed like a great opportunity at Kepala to use the seesaw and revisit this agility skill. And, of course, who could resist the weave poles?

There's a sandy enclosure, so that invited us also. Penny happily chased the floaty toys, now operating as throwing toys.

By the time we drove home she was ready to relax, and she's been doing that most of the day.



Here's a picture from above:

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.