Dog gone good!

The girls say they can tell Maya's getting better: she's annoying again!

She has definitely regained some of her energy and gotten more demanding of attention. All good. But better than that, the vets say she's truly amazing. The hospital vet said on Saturday that he was so impressed with Maya's progress that he projected she'd be out of her bandage in another couple of weeks, which would be six weeks from her accident. Furthermore, she may yet escape surgery to fuse her ankle bone. While most dogs with this type of sheering injury to their foot need surgery because of the loss of tendons, Maya's foot seems to be improving enough through scar tissue. "Maya may be one of the 5 percent not needing surgery," he said. Good girl.

What she may need is specialized physical therapy and I've gotten more specific exercises for her leg. To get Maya to use the leg, the vet advised the reverse of heeling—letting her lead and pulling her back at the same time to get her to plant her rear leg to push herself forward. Guess you could call it the anti-heel.

What I hadn't realized was how much and how quickly she had lost muscle mass in her thigh on the injured leg. So what do I do? Over-walked her on Sunday.  We went up the mountain, since I figured she needed an uphill pull to make her use the leg. She was really wiped out that night. Yesterday I laid off.

Today we got out for only a little walk, and initially she wasn't dropping the leg much at all. Then we met some of her old friends from her puppy-day walks around the neighborhood! The old Maya emerged and she forgot all about her injury. She was standing and walking on all fours as she nuzzled her old buddy Leo, a sweet, friendly rottweiler. I was going to separate her because she was getting so excited but changed my mind seeing her walking around on all her limbs.

A sad note, though, was finding out that Leo's companion, Taz, had died in his sleep a couple of weeks ago, apparently from a heart attack. Leo was the first rottweiler I met after getting Maya. He and Taz changed my opinion of rotties. Poor Taz; he was only three years old.

It's interesting how my opinions of and feelings toward dogs has changed since getting Maya. Used to be I couldn't imagine having a smelly, obnoxious dog around. Besides, at heart I'm a cat person, as is Meche. Oh well, open your mind and your heart expands as well.