Seizing the Days

Finally, we awakened to sunshine and some warmth!

We headed out into the world fairly early, greeting by birds singing and warmer air than we've felt in a while.

I was tired this morning. We are trying hard to make decisions about R's elbow, and we were up late last night talking through the "decision tree". You have no idea how I wish our R was born with normal joints, like Shyla is lucky enough to have.

We'll do whatever we can to help R keep running with minimal pain. The one definitive decision we've made is to delay the big reconstructive surgery on his elbow at least until the end of the summer. We may take less extreme measures between now and then to keep him going.

You never know how many years you'll get with your dog, and we don't want to waste a summer of R's life with him being required to be sedentary. The surgeon agrees that R can wait until fall for the big surgery.

I hate to say it - but K didn't live to be much older than R is now. That's part of why we know that we need to seize every day we can with our dogs. And, we need to carefully plan out when R will have that big surgery so we don't miss out on the amazing mountain summer with him.

The photo above demonstrates why R hasn't been featured in many "snow frolicking" photos recently. Running in deep snow is tough on a dog's body. Shyla seems to handle it well but I try to steer her away from the really deep snow when I can. And, I try not to let R do it at all when he's out with me and Shyla.

Playing in the snow must be sleep inducing. This is how I found the Duo later in the morning. A tiny sun puddle had formed, and they were sharing it.

We all love our Black Dog - and we hope that we are working toward making decisions that will allow him to seize as many days as possible!