Leo's x-rays from before surgery (ouch!!):
Leo's x-rays from after the surgery:
As you can see it was a NASTY break. The pin that you see through his bone in the second image was actually taken out two weeks early too because the wriggly monkey managed to pop it so that it was poking through his skin :(
Looking at Leo and his absolute zest for life makes you realise that you have to grab life with both hands. To think that this little darling was almost put to sleep because of his injury and because no one claimed him is heartbreaking. It makes you realise the work that the Dog's Trust do and why it matters - thank god they stepped in.
Anyway.... on a lighter note. We have had more fun since we got back from Ipswich. Leo is a bit naughtier than before. I think the penny has dropped with him that we are here to stay and he's now trying to establish his position in the heirarchy a bit. He's started woofing (he has a pathetic "wwhhhhuff!" of a bark so I have to try really hard not to snigger when he's trying to be the tough lol!) when I am putting his food in his bowl. If I ignore it long enough he does just lay down and shut up though which is good.
And, speaking of lying down, we have been incorporating a hand signal into his "down" command and tonight he did it from just that! Sitting is still a problem. As you can see, Leo finds it more comfortable to be sitting on something raised:
This weekend we also had a walk around Newmillerdam. We'd aimed to go to the Sculpture park at Bretton but the car park was sooooo expensive that we turned around in a huff!
Leo got to express his hatred for birds:
Now that he's a bit firmer on his feet I've ordered him a 50foot lead. Once that comes we can practice recall training on the field behind the Avenue some more. We had a go at it properly in Beaumont Park tonight with just his 5 metre extension lead and a pocketful of treats and I have to admit he did quite well.
Lead work is quite hard because when we brought Leo home he wasn't allowed long walks so I think that's what's making it a little more challenging to introduce him to it - maybe it would be different if we could have done it all from day one. He doesn't do so bad considering.
Other things we have learnt this week:
- I bought Leo a new toy that I have nicknamed "Bottle-Fox". It's basically a stuffed toy fox, without the stuffing. Where the stuffing would go, there's room to put an empty plastic water bottle. There's a squeaker in it's head and tail. Leo has played with it every day since Saturday (5 days and counting now....) and it's still in tact! I did have to put a couple of stitches in where I ripped the price tag off and tore it (!) but Leo has not damaged it at all. This is new ground. Leo "The Dark Destroyer" normally takes a chunk out of everything. I wonder if Bottle-Fox can last a week.....
- It is official - Leo can literally get comfy anywhere:
Still love the boy though! We are working harder than ever now on reinforcing the "rules". Me & hubby have a stash of treats on us constantly at the moment, so we can reward Leo when he does something that we want him to realise is good - even i that's just laying down quietly while we're on the phone or something. Been doing a lot of reading up and positive reinforcement makes more sense than punishing him for things we don't want him to do.
It's a learning curve for all of us but hopefully we're heading in the right direction. Now that we now Leo is healing nicely and his legs are getting stronger (you can actually feel the difference in his legs) we will be starting obedience classes in a couple of weeks. Now THAT should make for an interesting blog post.....
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