Happy Days
The past few days have been very rewarding & I feel the need to share!
I’ve been walking with my friend Riley since September of 2008. He’s always been so excited to see me and eager to venture out into the suburban Colorado wilderness (i.e. the nearest open space park) for our afternoon walks. Suddenly, Riley’s behavior changed when I went to visit one day. Instead of wiggling in excitement when he saw me, Riley became visibly nervous, panting and shaking. He wouldn’t walk much that day.
Riley’s vet suspects that he’s suffering from a neurological disorder, a type of “Doggie Dementia.” Over time, Riley found himself lost in his own backyard, snapping, not recognizing friends, and refusing to walk with his own people. It became difficult not to take Riley’s resistance to walk with me personally, but his Mom assured me that his behavior was the same across the board.
On Sunday I had a new opportunity to walk Riley. In the last few months since I’ve seen him, Riley’s made improvement at home. However, when I first arrived, Riley presented the same symptoms of nervousness (shaking, refusing to walk). After attempting to walk, we ventured into the backyard for a bit. When we came back inside, Riley started barking in the way that’s always meant “Let’s go WALK!” So we leashed up and headed out front again … only to find Riley at a dead stop just a few steps out of the house.
So, as we’ve done on every visit since Riley’s behavior changed, we took things slowly. A few steps here, a few more there … and before I knew it, Riley started walking. Slow but steady, we went one block north . . turned around and went one block south . . and he kept going! In fact, he didn’t want to head home when it was time to turn back! LOL
I texted Riley’s Mom with the great news and I think we were both near tears! Riley is WALKING! We’re both SO happy, and I’ll hopefully see Riley again soon so that he doesn’t forget me. In the meantime … CELEBRATION!!
In other happy news, while walking my pug friend Tilde the other day, I picked her up (her owners prefer her not to interact with other dogs during walks) and we stopped to chat with a neighbor and her cute Pekingese, Sophie. The neighbor walks Sophie every day with the help of a walker. She noted how much she liked Tilde’s mesh body harness and wanted one for Sophie (her pulling makes walking difficult some days). Lo’ and behold, I had a similar harness at home, a holiday gift from clients Mike and Jennifer Stamm. Since the harness was too small for my babies, I held onto it hoping to donate it to an ERU dog, but I felt that Sophie was the right choice :) I brought the harness with me and gave it to Sophie and her Mama today!
Here’s Smiling Sophie! You can’t really see the harness, but she’s wearing it!
Sophie and her Mama :)
