Good news!

Duncan is allowed to start walking a bit! The latest x-ray shows the break healing very well. He's supposed to walk slowly, not running or jumping or twisting. Ha! He's much better at running, jumping, and twisting than he is at walking slowly, and I'm sure he thinks we're the meanest parents ever for stopping him, but it's one step closer to normal.

Awkward things, leashes - always in the way!

To encourage walking, we started working on the "heel" exercise we've been learning about at school (really more walking on a loose leash than a formal heel, but it sounds good.) We lured him using a smear of peanut butter on a long spoon, which he quite liked. But then we broke out the good stuff - a jar of beef baby food - and he thinks that heeling may possibly become one of his favourite things ever. Look at those eyes!

Merry Christmas!

An eventful Christmas, with two trips to the vet, but at the end a happy (and tired) little pup.

When we last left our little hero, he had just had his splint removed to help him regain some mobility in his leg. He had toe-stretching exercises to do, but we were told to leave the hock to loosen up on its own to avoid any chance of aggravating the fracture. By Christmas Eve afternoon his mobility was much better, so Dr. Steph suggested putting a splint back on to give him (and us) a bit more freedom for the holiday. Aunties Genna and Erin obliged with a blue splint with Santa on it, although Santa didn't last too long:

Duncan had a great time on Christmas Eve, hobbling around the tree and opening some of his gifts.

Should we worry that his favourite treats are Pill Pockets? (I'm not sure he's even noticed that they sometimes contain pills!)

Unfortunately, the splint only stayed on until 6:00 am Christmas morning. We headed back to the vet for another (green this time), but it only lasted 10 minutes. So he finished Christmas back on the crate-and-cuddle regime. That meant some time spent with some of his stuffies:

 

Naturally, because he's been such a good boy, Santa left him a stocking:

 and a few other things:

And he partied hard, meeting some new cousins and chatting with both grandmas...

...before he crashed...

Can we do this again soon?

There was a leg under there?

Well, it's been two weeks since Duncan broke his leg, and we were back for another x-ray this afternoon. It looks like the fracture is healing well, but the vet was concerned about his joint mobility because he wouldn't move his knee, ankle or even toes. She emailed the x-rays to his specialist at MOVEC, but while she's waiting to hear back he's home without a splint and on complete crate rest. So far that's easy, because he's a very mournful, sorry-for-himself little boy, quite willing to lie in his crate or snuggle with us. I don't expect that to last long, though!

It's funny watching him get re-acquainted with his leg. It's almost as if he's forgotten how it works. He's starting to bend it when he changes positions, but he always dutifully sticks it straight out again, as if it still had the splint holding it in place.



As soon as we arrived at the vet, even before the x-ray, the Artists of Askey started working on his next splint design. It's almost too bad that he didn't get another splint to put it on, because it's a masterpiece of vet wrap art:

And here's one of him this morning, nearly giving himself a concussion trying to scratch his ear:

Skunks must die!

It must be a terrier thing. Duncan seems to share Kerry's conviction that skunks are the Ultimate Vermin. He enjoys being on the couch with us, sometimes resting and watching TV, sometimes playing with his toys. 

He had another Kerry moment yesterday, too. Remember how she used to pounce on her dish to spill the kibble - until the day she mistakenly pounced on the water dish? Well, we've got a plastic water dish that clamps to the side of Duncan's crate. The actual bowl has a little bar on the bottom that fits through a slot in the base, then it rotates so it's solidly held in place. He's normally fine with it. But in one of his wild moments, he decided to drill for water from underneath. Somehow he rotated it far enough to knock over the bowl, spilling water everywhere. Most of it missed him, but he was (briefly) a rather subdued little puppy!

And just for Erin, here he is in the hated collar. He's been so good about leaving his splint alone that he only wears it at night, and we could probably leave it off even then but don't want to risk it.

School again tonight. And Erin will be home in time to go with us!

Wrapping presents

Yesterday Duncan and I wrapped Christmas presents. He was a great help in dealing with the empty cardboard rolls. Other than that, he was a bit of a pill for much of the day. He's feeling much more himself, and is getting impatient with all the crate rest and coddling. He wants to run and jump and get into mischief. Hopefully he'll be able to do more of that soon. Well, the running and jumping, at least. Perhaps not too much more of the mischief - he already manages a surprising amount of that! 

I'm not quite sure what that last photo is, but I think it might be a victory dance. 

Good bones

Duncan has discovered that not all bones cause problems. In fact, the stuffed bones that we're told to use in class when the humans are supposed to listen are very good indeed. The only problem with them is how to get the stuffing out, but he solved that pretty quickly! 

We had a quiet weekend; Duncan spent much of it snoozing in his crate in the family room. Our only real outings were into the yard - to check out the Christmas tree (tasty, but a prickly sort of texture), watch Dad put up the lights, and to try to catch some raindrops. We played the Attention Game and touch-the-hand several times, but they're getting too easy so we'll need to move it up a notch.

First day of school

Making himself comfortable (pre-splint change)

Duncan officially started school on Thursday evening. Of course, he can't do a lot of the sitting, standing, and so on, but he did enjoy looking around the hall and watching all the other dogs work. And he's really good at the Attention Game. The rules are simple - human shows puppy a treat, then holds it out at arm's length to the side. As soon as the puppy looks away from the treat to the human's face, they get praise and a different treat that's produced magically from behind the back. The instructor demonstrated it using a big Lab puppy across from us. He(?) showed a very impressive attention span for staring at the treat in the hand, but wasn't quite seeing the relevance of a face. Duncan, on the other hand, follows the treat out to the side, then looks at us with a sort of "Really? Is that the best distraction you can think of?" expression on his face. Have I mentioned that he's smart? 

(We even played a round of the Attention Game to give him his Tramadol this morning. He loves Pill Pockets, so we broke one up into pieces and he played for them. One of the pieces just happened to have a tablet hidden in it...)

Friday was a sleepy day. Not surprising, after both the vet and school on Thursday! He spent a lot of time snuggled in on Kerry's old Sesame Street comforter on the family room couch, watching TV and napping beside Megan. We've had our money's worth out of that comforter - I think we bought it for Erin's first bed! He also got hold of Megan's phone and called Dad at work. Have I mentioned that he's smart? ;)

 

This morning he seems a bit fussy and nippy, so we brought out a new chew for him - an antler. He isn't at all sure that this is something he wants to put in his mouth, which is unusual to say the least. He normally puts anything and everything into his mouth, and I have the scabs to prove it! We'll have to stock up again on chewies. He likes most of his chews - the puppy Nylabone is a favourite -  but he does get bored with them so we'll have to try some new ones.

He's finally napping now, and Dad and Megan have gone to get the Christmas tree. We won't decorate it until everyone's home (you'll have to try to stay awake after your red-eye flight, Evan!), but it will be interesting to see his reaction to having a random tree move in.

Leg update

Duncan has a follow-up x-ray this morning, and his leg seems to be doing well. A callus is forming, and there doesn't appear to be any worsening of the alignment. So, although we're still waiting for the official verdict from the specialist, it sounds good. Meanwhile, he got a very nice new seasonal splint from Genna. Doesn't he look dashing with his snowman?

And, as Erin pointed out, science requires that experiments be replicable, so we did another taste test at lunch. He wasn't very hungry after his morning at the vet, but we started out with 1/3 of each kibble type, and after I sorted out the leftovers, we ended up with this. It seems his new food is a hit.

Tonight is his first class at puppy school. Since he hasn't been able to do most of his practice exercises, and since his pills make him sleepy, he may not be the star student quite yet. But he has awesome new treats (got to keep up with the other puppies in the really important things!) and he'll probably get lots of attention and sympathy, so I'm sure he'll enjoy it. Remember how Kerry slept through most of puppy preschool?

Science in action

Yesterday was a sleepy day for Duncan. Megan and I took him for a walk in Nelson park in the afternoon, and he watched the kids at PJ playing at recess. Today, though, he was feeling more energetic so we went to Paletta to see the ducks. No luck! It was the first time that I have ever seen the creek at Paletta duckless. There were a few on the lake, but we pretty much had to settle for interesting smells.

The other half of today's outing was a quest for more dog food. He had been eating Nutro puppy food, a fairly good brand, at the breeder. But the supply that came with him is nearly gone. I had changed him over to Acana, which is an excellent Canadian-made food. Its only drawback is that Duncan doesn't like it. So we went to the Global store thinking we'd better pick up some more Nutro. After all, a guy needs comfort food when he's under the weather. Unfortunately, they didn't have any of the Nutro puppy food in stock, but there was a very nice young woman working there who gave him lots of sympathy and suggested we try a sample package of a brand I'd never heard of - Precise Holistic Complete. So we picked it up, and Duncan conducted his first Official Science Experiment - a blind taste test. Here's the sample plate - Nutro at 10 o'clock, Acana at 6, Precise at 2.

Scientist in action

And the winner is - Precise. Duncan is a very systematic eater. He gobbled down all the Precise, then moved to the Nutro. He ate nearly all of that, and completely ignored the Acana. I even replenished the Nutro and repositioned the plate. Nope. Dad has gone off to buy more, along with some Nutro to phase it in with.

Science has spoken.

First visit to Petsmart

As Duncan's leg starts to feel better, he's beginning to get bored, though not as bored as he would be if his pain pills didn't have a sedating effect, thank goodness! So he does his best to hobble around a bit, and we do our best to keep him off his leg as much as possible, at least until the next x-ray. Since he has to spend most of his time snuggling, he wriggles into some amazing positions, some of which look very uncomfortable:

He still seems to be interested in technology, enjoying TV, skyping, and helping Megan play her Simpsons game on the ipad:

Auratus cichlid

We started going on little field trips yesterday, including his first visit to Petsmart, where he got lots of attention and sympathy from the staff, especially Jess. She suggested some treats she thought he might like, and we bought him a water dish that attaches to his crate. Then just before we left, we wandered over to the fish tanks, and Duncan was absolutely fascinated! The tanks that were swarming with goldfish were interesting, but these auratus cichlids seemed to be his favourite. Later on, he also visited Askey when we picked up Megan, and went for a walk around the block.

Feeling better

Day 3 of the broken leg saga, and Duncan is starting to feel more himself. He's sitting up more, and looking much more his usual alert little self than the sad little puppy we had yesterday. He still woke us 3 or 4 times in the night, but at least twice it was because he had managed to stand up and then couldn't get down again. (Well, it's hard when one leg is longer than the rest and won't bend!)

Have I mentioned that this little guy is super smart? This morning, we started back to "school". We've been working on the first level of Sue Ailsby's Levels clicker training program, and he had been doing really well until his accident. So today we warmed up with a couple of look-at-the-kibble-in-my-hand-but-Leave-It exercises, then moved on to practice his newest lesson, touching my hand with his nose. After a while, he looked tired, so I set the clicker aside and just offered him the rest of the kibble in the bowl. He stared at it for a few seconds, then turned and glared pointedly at the clicker! Clearly he felt that this was some kind of pop quiz, and he wasn't going to fall for it. I picked it up, clicked, and he finished his breakfast.




We also combed him today for the first time since Thursday. He has such a fine baby coat that it doesn't stay looking combed for long! Can you tell which side of him got beautified first?