Didn't get around to adding all the notes from Mindy's first diary entry, so here's a shortened version along with what she is like on her second diary entry, hope it makes sense?
Pills she is on, are Onsior (pain killers, along with Diazapan, if I felt necessary, I only used them the once and only one tab, that scared me to see her worse on her legs and felt that although it was a muscle relaxant, I felt she could do more damage having it, falling over etc.) She is also on Synulox twice a day, which finished this morning and Seraquin.
Ian bought her a roasted chicken from Asda to help get her eating again and to help with all the pill popping she was having to do!
So on the Thursday we noticed she did her first stretch bow and shook her neck and shoulders, whilst in the sitting position she could bend her head down a little way to lick her front paws, she couldn't reach her "girly bits" to keep them clean and I thought I could smell wee, she turned around in circles slowly to make her bed, rolled on her back I think more to scratch her stitches than anything....Didn't poo until Friday morning from having picked her up on the Wednesday, but we did struggle to get her to eat anything to start with and she would only wee ever 12 hours...On her harness she seems to walk like a camel, both legs the same side moving forward. Oh yes and she barked with her tail up, couldn't eat from her bowl on the floor, so raised it for her.....would place her left foot 60% of the time, still forgetting to sort her toes out..weaker is still back left leg.
My vet at Rock View Vets, Roche, saw her on Friday and was amazed to see how well she looked and better still Mindy didn't eat her, just wagged her tail and accepted her liver treat, I asked about the wee smell and she couldn't smell anything but suggested a wee sample be collected and she would check she hadn't got anything, so I left armed with all the bits for collecting some, but I soon realised that collecting a wee sample wasn't going to be easy as she was only doing it once every 12 hours and a dish would be too big, so I walked around with a soup spoon!!! in the mean time she started mark weeing so I knew nothing was wrong and gave up on the idea of collecting any!!
Sunday was next time to take notes....She now happily turns around around to make her bed, digs up her bedding with her front feet, 85% places the leg, only the once saw her toes turned under when she squatted to wee, proper girly wee now and when she poo'd, she poo's more with the arched back and not so low to the ground, she stretches when she first comes out the crate, she's sleeping in that now by the side of our bed rather than us sleeping on the floor with her, she whinged first, but is fine now and slept through until 5 on Saturday morning, she has to have her morning pills half an hour before her breakfast but only tomorrow for them and then it's just the Seraquin for a few months....She is allowed free run on lounge without her harness on but as we have two sofa's in there I haven't been brave enough to wander off, as I don't want her jumping on or off of them just yet, although I'm sure she would!
Thanks to Elaine for suggesting baby gate to keep other dogs out the way, when I do let her out in the lounge, Sennen and Buzz are such "bull in china shop dogs" they are both trying hard to be calm around her but I panic, so rather than panic Hilary lent us her spare one, thanks Hilary, Hilary does a great job and fosters Springer Spaniels in Cornwall, we took Mindy over to their place on Saturday just to get Mindy out the house, she was a little on the nervous side with the Springers, but they gave her space she needed (actually I think they were to scared !! only kidding Hilary) we had tea and cake outside on the lawn, Mindy on her harness, she found a ball under the table and started to try and run a round with it, she then threw it at me to throw for her, so I rolled it toward her and she thought that was great....We did attempt to carry her on another dogwalk with the others, but Ian had to go back she was too wriggly, nice to see all legs going for it, but she wouldn't settle in Ian's arms, but he met up with us 30 mins later to do the last 5 mins to home with her, which worked out great...She has started to walk backwards out the way of us too and now shakes from head to toe, we are still massaging and doing ttouch on her as much as we can and some other physio exercises, I have done another video of her walking, which I'll post later...
Dawn Weaver was right when she said to me "when you see the pain in her eyes go, you will start to be able to move forward" So thank you Dawn...Still haven't been able to watch the video I had done of our distance workshop, Dawn had replied on the Wednesday and I hadn't had time to read through all the comments when this happened and maybe I never will read them.....
Thanks to Sue for taking Sennen and I out for a lovely walk down to Porth Jolly, thanks for looking after us all during this time and for driving me up to pick Mindy up, made life so much easier.....
Thanks also to all those keeping in touch via emails, texts, facebook and in person, I don't quite know how I'd be without you all...
She's doing great, eating food and bones from the floor, she wants to play with her toys, so we are being rather careful and just roll the ball to her, but she has started picking that up and running (running not quite) off with it and throwing it around and bouncing on it! she's walking down a few steps now and sometime up them, just the ones going into the house (we live in a Bungalow) she cant jump on the sofa, but has beaten us to getting off, she turns in circles without falling over now, she has had her stitches out a couple of days now and the vet was really pleased with her, but did point out she still has a long way to go (like we don't know) hopefully start the water tread mill soon and thinking about getting someone in to do the ttouch as I'm not sure whether I'm doing it right, although I am sure Mindy may very well put up a fight re some strange person trying to touch her feet!
