Greetings From Southern Vermont

Hi everyone.

My first post was submitted the morning of Hurricane Irene and I was talking about what a week I had just been through. I guess it wasn’t quite over.

Mom told me not to worry too much about the Hurricane…it would be just like the rain we had in the spring. I think there were lots of other people who thought the same thing. We live in Southern Vermont.  I am not going to tell you all about…there is so much information in the news about it.

Maggie, my pawrents, Loomis (he’s a big fat orange cat…you’ll hear about him in another post some day) and I didnt experience the damage that so many others did.   Dad couldn’t make it home for two days. I was so excited to seem him…I got to practice my happy corkscrew dance on one front leg. I didnt fall.

Mom told me that it’s good that I am taking it easy this week. It would be too dangerous for me to go to the places I usually like to visit.

Remember I showed you a picture of me and Maggie in the brook? We had a really great swimming hole and lots of big rock piles to climb on.  This is what it used to look like. 

Mom said it doesn’t look like that anymore and that we can’t go down there for ahwhile.  She says that we will have a lot of fun rebuilding the area.
She also said that the rest of Vermont is going to rebuild, especially all the towns around us. She thinks that lots of people have been given an opportunity to grow spiritually. Something about gratitude, suffering, and letting go of attachments. When she was saying that she gave me a very intense look. Not one of those looks that makes my tail droop. Not one of those alpha dog looks either.  It was one of the looks where we just stare at each other … I love those.

I just wanted to share these photos of me at one week post surgery. Marmie (she’s one of my Grandpawrents…she lives with Grandpaw) said that Maggie looks like she is concerned about me. I stole her tennis ball. The only thing that might have been concerning her is that I am feeling better enough to be a pest again.

 I also want to give a shout out to Marmie and Grandpaw’s dog Spirit Tigger.  He was fun to go visit.  He was a lot older than me so he couldn’t play too much.  He died last month.  My Marmie and Grandpaw  really miss him.  If any of the Spirit Tripawds run into Tigger tell him we all miss him.  Marmie would always give us treats when we visited.

 

I am getting around really well.  Mom thinks too well.  I ran down the basement stairs this afternoon…I was supposed to go out the back door.  After I did that, I got one of those looks that can make my tail droop.  I didnt really care, it was worth it.

I also keep trying to head out on my trails.  I am sooooooo bored with walking around the yard.  Maggie told me to knock it off…she has missed out on the hikes and swims also…and she has four legs.  It is going to be so much fun to chase after her again.  Mom said that there will be no hip checks and tackling  for a while.

My Dad leaves for Alaska in two days.  He is going to be gone for two weeks. Next Monday I can start exercising a bit more and next Wednesday I have my appointment to get my staples out .  Dad is going to be so surprised when he returns and sees how much progress I have made. 

There is one thing I want to have figured out before he gets home.  Just before my accident I was starting to lift my leg like a big boy when I went to the bathroom.  I tried doing that the other day and fell over.  I have to figure out that one soon…I sometimes pee on my one front leg.  I don’t know why Mom always says it easier for guys to go outside.

Mom has taken all the yoga mats that she has from when she used to teach a yoga class and has put them all over the house on top of the wood floors.  This has really helped me get around.  If anyone has a tough time with wood floors…I strongly recommend yoga mats.

At first Mom would mostly massage me around where my leg used to be and up into my neck.  That felt really good.  Then she started to notice the amazing transformation that my left leg is going through.  It is lining up more under my body and I am building up some really good muscles. ( Mom said she has to go back to doing one legged balancing poses so she can build up her legs to look like mine.)  Anyway, she started to massage the leg that has had to start working harder.  Now that’s what I call good thinking.  I was trying to tell her that what she was doing felt good, but, I wanted her to focus on what I still had, not what I had lost.  That’s when I got another one of “those” looks…the one where she says she is learning so much from me.

Well, that is enough for today….

Hope everyone out there is having a Grateful Dawg day…

Wilson