Two Months Out

This week, I'm finally starting to feel like we have Ginger back. While she is still technically supposed to be restricted, we have been letting her out back (especially on these nice sunny days) though still walking her for the most part. But I really felt like when I looked at her, her eyes were droopier and she was still lacking some of the sparkle that we loved and that drove us crazy. She just seemed sadder, or older, or something.

But, enough time passed, or enough healing happened, or something, that this week, she started reviving herself a bit. She completely chewed apart her little soccer ball. She has wanted to do the wild running back and forth and rolling on the carpet games with the kids again. Before she eviscerated the soccer ball, she made it clear she really wanted to play the old game where we would stand at the top of the steps and I'd throw it down for her to retrieve. Even though we live in a split level, that seemed a bridge too far for a dog who is supposed to be on restricted stair climbing. She rolls over to expose her belly more, and is desperate to play tug-o-war, which she showed no interest in even two weeks ago (but alas is still on the "no" list).

She still favors the leg, and lies down in a new way, and tries to avoid sitting if she can possibly help it. She also still collapses in to "down" positions that were not her "old" normal and are a little pathetic, really--but if you didn't know her before, maybe you wouldn't think so. But she will let us pet the affected leg now, and when we took her on a jog around the track with the kids, she was deliriously happy for hours, giving us her happy dog grin and panting away like the old girl we knew.

I had been really afraid that the operation had rushed our dog prematurely in to old age, but now I am hopeful that she will recover to pretty close to where she was. Fingers crossed!