Sunday 5th September
I don't always start on a Sunday but then the last few Sundays I have taken some cracking photo's of Dembe so I have decided to share them.
Dembe's love affair continued today when I found two long lost socks tucked inside a tea towel which were a casualty of the tumble dryer. The socks were paired ( although they weren't a pair ) and then placed on the stairs ready to be taken upstairs. Dembe though had other ideas and immediately grabbed them and then paraded around the lounge with them.
He was so very proud of himself and he paraded with them several times throughout the day.
Monday 6th September
As Dembe's intermittent limp had gone away we decided to allow him to go out for a walk with Luke from Happy Dogs. He had a lovely walk and was fine after his walk. As it was so warm I got his paddling pool out to allow him to cool down as the temperature had soared whilst he was out with Luke.
Later on in the afternoon it became clear that Dembe's limp was back and worse than before, so I rang the vets and got an appointment booked for the following morning at 11am. As we still had some pain relief left I mixed it in with some cottage cheese and gave it to him. He goes crazy for cottage cheese.
You can see some slight evidence of his cottage cheese with the white dot on his nose!
Tuesday 7th September
Dembe has the vets today with his daddy at 11am. I decided to stay at home because it is so hot and due to Covid-19 I wont be allowed in the vets, only one of us can go in. Dembe and daddy are back much quicker than I expected. Today the vet has finally been able to see his limp, she has booked him in for a set of 6 x-rays, 3 on each front leg. In the meantime we have pain relief for him and we have to reduce his exercise with immediate effect. He is now only allowed 25 minutes off lead a day and the rest are just walks around the block for toilet breaks. The vet has said this could be a muscle tear that is just taking a while to heal but it could also be elbow dysplasia. They just wont know until the othopedic specialist has written their report after viewing the X-rays.
Due to the restricted exercise I have had to cancel all of Dembe's walks that he has booked with professional dog walkers. It is a shame as Dembe loves his walks but we need to ensure he isn't doing any further damage. We shall be playing some brain games with him to stimulate him mentally. As it is so hot Dembe isn't having long walks anyway.
Very grateful that he is insured as the X-rays alone will be coming in at over £700!
As is usual when his daddy is home I barely get a look in! It is the Daddy and Dembe love in today.
Wednesday 8th September
Today will be Dembe's first day without his afternoon walk, that he would usually get on a Wednesday. As Sophie was on holiday he wasn't booked in for one today, so daddy is popping home on his lunch break at 5pm to take him around the block.
When Jay goes to work Dembe is stuck to me like glue. I am writing this week's blog post on my The Myasthenia Kid and he has nestled beside me on the sofa.
With his treat box coming last week it has made things easier occupying him. I pulled out a humongous furry cows ear (yuck), He enjoyed it and it kept him out of trouble.
When I was doing my pilates exercises Dembe climbed on top of me and dropped his wet partially chewed cows ear on my face, thanks boy! Mummy is always a climbing frame when she is on the floor no matter what she is doing.
He spent quite a bit of the afternoon snoozing and was very ready when his dad came home at 5pm for his walk around the block. When Jay got in at 10pm Dembe got his last walk of the day.
Thursday 9th September
Dembe was fizzing with energy today, it is safe to say he is missing the exercise that a long run brings. He is being a bit barky today so I decided to start playing brain games with him and so some training as well. It has been a long time since I have done this and I really need to get back in the habit.
I managed to capture him in this photo just on the inhale before he barked.
For our first brain game I got a muffin tin form the kitchen and some treats. I then searched through Dembe's toy box and found all the balls that he had plus a few toys. I then placed treats into the tin and covered the holes where the treats were with the toys. Whilst doing this i made Dembe sit and stay as otherwise he would have eaten them before I had the treats covered. As you can see from the video ( well hear) his nose is really engaged with this game as he works out where all the treats have been hidden.
I upped the difficulty level on each game, I did this by adding flat coasters instead of toys over the top of the treats so he had to work out that he had to slide the coasters.
Another game we played is one I call touch, so a while ago I trained Dembe to touch the palm of my hand with his nose when I say the command touch. I then vary the position my hands are in and change which hand I will use so no hand is in the same position twice. I don't think we had played this for around a year and he remembered it straight off. Of course this time I couldn't do any positions where he would be jumping up like I did before.
Daddy was due home at 6pm ( he had already been home at lunch time and walked him around the block), Dembe wanted to go to the toilet ( despite the fact the back door was open all afternoon) and lay in front of the door to let me know that is what he wanted.
Friday 10th September
Daddy was home poorly from work today, he had come down with a migraine overnight. He doesn't get them very often but when he does they are bad ones. Dembe spent a lot of the day upstairs with his daddy keeping him company. I wasn't feeling brilliant either with intermittent vertigo.
Dembe was knackered after being on duty all day!
Saturday 11th September
Daddy was back to work today and was on a late finish. None of us woke up until gone 9am, Dembe had been out at 5.30am but had come back to bed and had promptly fallen asleep. We were in shock that Dembe had allowed us to sleep for that long as lie in's are not something he does.
We are looking at changing Dembe's food again as he has been really awful of late with his food and turning up his nose. We have had a really good 18 months - 2 years with his eating but it is a royal pain in the arse when he starts refusing to eat. So we have decided to go back and try raw or B.A.R.F - biologically appropriate raw food. Dembe has problems with his ears which 9/10 is caused by an allergy to something in his diet, plus he has got a bit pudgy and needs to lose some weight. I went back to my favourite raw food site which is Dogs First and looked up how they recommended to switch a fussy eater over to raw. So for the last few days I have been adding a small amount of minced beef to his meals as we know that he likes raw mince from when I make his meat loaf.
Well the minced beef has gone down so well he is back to inhaling his meals and I have been able to reduce the amount of his normal food and replace it with beef. We shall still be doing this slowly and will use beef mince when we start moving him over to a better balanced raw food. I haven't seen him eat like that since he was a puppy!
As Dembe was a sleepy boy today I managed to get some sewing done this afternoon. I did give him a deer leg to chew on but he didn't take any notice of that until later in the evening when he stripped it completely.
He was a very good boy for me today apart from when I was having my dinner and trying to watch an Italian TV show that had English subtitles. Dembe kept managing to position himself between my plate and the Tv so I was having to guess at what was being said whilst the subtitles were obscured.
We don't have any plans for Sunday other than to chill out and get some housework done! See you all next week
