Our Black Lab's Recovery from CUE Surgery - Week 8

Today is our Week 8 update on R's recovery from CUE surgery. In general, he's getting better and better. He's allowed to be off-leash in the house when we're not expecting anything exciting to happen like the UPS man driving down to the house or one of us getting home.

He's also allowed to go for 25 minute walks 2-3X per day, and he's allowed 5 minutes off-leash outdoors per day. That's a wildcard that makes us nervous. Yesterday, he really sprinted during those 5 minutes and made himself a bit sore. However, the x-rays taken last week show that the hardware is strongly fixed in the bones of his elbow so he can't destroy his "new elbow" by running too hard.

R galloping 2 years ago

I've made a video of his gait to show what he looks like now. The hardest part is that he's no longer focused on walking. He feels good enough that he's looking for squirrels and bunnies so he rarely walks at a steady pace or straight! I found a couple of clips when he was walking straight to show you.

I also show his new exercises in the video. He's still doing many from last week but there are new ones now (woe is me!!!). The hardest one is doing a sit-stand-sit transition on the squishy blue disk. It took us about 4 days before he could even sit on it. Then another few days passed before he could stand at all (yesterday was his first "stand"). It's incredibly hard for him but he doesn't give up. I've tried it with Shyla, and she can do it easily so R's difficulties with it are due to his surgery.

Finally, he got a new toy, a giant "peanut", that he puts his front paws on and does various exercises. You'll see in the video that we're not very good at those yet. Apparently, before too long, he won't need me to stabilize the peanut while he works. However, that is VERY hard to believe right now!

If you look in the background of the video while we are working on the peanut, you'll see a GIANT print of R on the wall (the same photo as I showed above). I gave it to the Runner as a gift - but now it's like an inspiration as we toil away at his exercises. Our goal is to have him run like that again!

Here is the video, which you can watch here or at Youtube.

Thanks for watching!!! And, if any of you have experience with teaching a dog how to use a peanut and have hints for me, I'd love to hear them!!! Thank you.

Glorious Start of Summer

It's the most glorious time of the year here. Just last month, it was still snowing. Now, we play in fields of wildflowers.

All that late snow made the wildflowers stunningly brilliant. I've found dense patches of tiny orchids, called "Fairy Slippers" unlike any I've seen before.

Some are tall, and some are short. I noticed one short one flourishing in the shade of all its brethren.

It's the time of year for velvet antlers. I loved the wry "look" that this yearling moose gave my camera.

Our moose population is growing so fast. We now have a male 2-year old, a male yearling (this one), and a mother with a new calf. Yet another mother-calf pair lives a short distance away. It's incredible how fast their population has grown!

Even though the days are so long now, I find myself wanting even more hours in the day because there are so many things that I love to do!

I hope that all of you are enjoying your worlds, whether you are at the start of summer or the start of winter. I know that I am!

Silhouette Sunday

One of the best parts of taking this photo was that R was with us! He's now allowed to walk up to the area where I enjoy viewing sunsets!

Of course, that's Shyla up on the boulder. It will be a while before I'll want R climbing onto boulders. Happy Sunday!

Positive Training in Nosework!

While our black dog has needed a lot of attention recently, I've still been spending at least my usual time with Shyla. If I cut back on her attention, I see her lose confidence almost right away.

Shyla and I have been reveling in our daily mountain bike rides. The meadows are brilliantly colored with yellow flowers and even wild irises. It's incredible how fast we transition from Shyla leaping through deep snow to leaping through a deep layer of flowers! Here she is doing a recall through the flowers with snowy mountains in the background.

I've also continued with Shyla's nosework training despite the hours I spend each day on R's rehab. I had hoped that R would be able to do nosework during his recovery but I didn't realize how carefully we had curtail his exercise for the first 8 weeks after his CUE surgery. Just now, he's allowed to start some easy searches.

R's recovery has meant that he's fallen way behind Shyla in nosework. She's been taking nosework classes with me throughout his recovery.

I thought I'd share one evening of four searches. They were outdoor searches where almost "anything goes". When you see her searching in the video, she's tracking down a 2" length of straw that has 2 scented q-tips inside it. She now searches for three different scents: birch, anise, and clove. It's pretty incredible to see how well she can pinpoint the scent outside where there are many competing scents plus wind to complicate matters.

I haven't figured out how to put an arrow on the video to show you where the scent is hidden. Either I have a slide first that tells you where it is or I try to point to it while she searches. My only real job is to keep the leash slack and to point out areas that she hasn't searched yet if she's having a hard time. I also keep track of the wind direction so I can guide her a bit so that she's downwind of the "hide" (hidden scent) if she's struggling at all.

This is part of the Positive Training Blog Hop. I've used nothing but positive training to teach our dogs nosework, mainly with the guidance of Fenzi courses. When Shyla finds the scent in the video, I literally spend 30 seconds to a minute giving her treats, one-by-one, and verbally praising her. I don't put our whole celebration on the video clips because the video would be too long! She adores nosework!!!!!

I hope that you enjoy seeing Shyla do nosework. You can watch our video here or at Youtube.

Happy Positive Training!

See Beautiful - From the Mountains to the Desert

Today, I am participating in the See Beautiful Blog Hop.

In yesterday's post, I showed video of the bear den being visited by a fox in the wee hours of 3/20/16. It was 12°F, and a deep layer of snow covered the ground.

At exactly the same time, we were in the desert, in much warmer air and with no snow on the ground! In fact, as we slept at that time, my camera was recording a time lapse series of photos of the stars rotating around the North Star. The fox's visit to the bear den happened about when the stars were halfway through their paths in the photo.

March is truly still winter near our mountain home in Colorado. The cubs in the den in our neck of the woods were almost 2 months old but weren't yet mobile. Snow was deep and copious. Under the snow, the wildflowers were getting ready for their time - which is now.

In the desert, springtime was getting started in March. By May, it was in full swing. A photo that I took in the Utah desert shows how such incredibly different worlds can be so close together. On the horizon, snowy mountains reach for the clouds - like near our home in Colorado. Where I was standing, slickrock, sand, and flowers dominated the desert floor.

I find the west to be incredibly beautiful due to the vast open spaces where nature flourishes and due to the dramatic contrasts between places not too far from each other.

 From snow on the ground at home to Claret Cacti blooming throughout the desert - wow!

Gorgeous Collared Lizards sunned themselves on the trails and then let me take their photos. This was a female or juvenile. The adult males are even flashier with turquoise colors on their bodies.

Primrose pointed their large faces toward the sun each day.

Gorgeous sunflowers bloomed beneath the red rock cliffs.

In May, Shyla found the desert to be hot and sneaked into many puddles of water throughout the desert.

Each day in the desert, it had cooled down by sunset, and Shyla was glad to laze in the boulders with me waiting for the best light.

Our world is so beautiful. I love the mountains with their snowy winters and luxurious springs. And I love the desert with its stark beauty and pockets of flower and lizard life. Our World is glorious. I try to make the most of every day that I'm given on this Earth because I get only one chance to live my life!

Fox in the Bear Den & First Cub Sighting

Back to the bear den -- all was quiet throughout March except that a red fox visited the bear den. He appeared to be attracted by the sound of the cubs crying. He stared at the entrance, taking a step or two toward it, and then backing off. When he got close to the entrance, the cubs went silent. He did that for 7 minutes!

Finally, he basically crawled into the den, with only his tail sticking out. I heard no sounds from the sow - no snorts or snarls. When the fox finally emerged, he did NOT have a cub in his mouth. I suspect that the sow hid the cubs under her and had a silent standoff with him.

Then, nothing much happened (the bears were snuggled in the den) until 4/10 - the day that the cubs decided that they wanted to go outside the den. However, mom didn't agree and kept pulling them back in. Here she is, resting between the 43 attempts that I counted of the cubs trying to escape!

All of this is included in a short video. You can watch it here or at Youtube. Although the scene appears quite bright through the trail cam lens - the lights were only infrared so the animals couldn't see them.

I sure hope that you enjoy it as much as I did! I love seeing the secret lives of our wildlife!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Desert Storms and Sunsets

The night before we left our first desert campsite to move to our second one, furious storms were near our second campsite. It turned out that I captured a few decent lightning photos during those storms.

Consequently, it was not surprising that every pothole and creek near our second campsite was filled with water.

Clouds still lingered when we first arrived.

But the west horizon cleared out in time to let me enjoy the sunset light on Shyla's fur.

And the sky still lit up beautifully after sunset. (Do you see the Labmobile in the dusky darkness?).

Desert sunsets are glorious!

Black Dog Pupdate - Week 7 post-CUE surgery

Our black dog keeps improving, now more than 7 weeks after his CUE surgery. He still has a noticeable limp but every other sign is looking great. Moreover, he walks really fast and enthusiastically compared to just a few weeks ago.

It is astounding to me how much of my day seems to be spent either doing R's exercises with him, walking with him, stretching his elbow, or icing his elbow. I feel as if there aren't enough hours in the day! I need a rest day :)

Here's a video to show his gait and his exercises for Week 7. His exercises have become far more challenging. He still targets with each paw while standing on a squishy disk but now he must alternate paws so that he learns to catch his balance quickly with his left front leg. He also does "push-ups", although they are now with only one front leg (I hold the other one up). He also crawls forward and backward, walks backward, and plays tug. Obviously, the vet is now focusing on rebuilding the strength and coordination in that his left forelimb.

Here's a video to show you the "state of affairs". One thing that you cannot tell from the gait part of the video is how much faster he's walking. He's speeding up by the day. You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

One unexpected twist has been that Shyla seems to lose confidence when I spend a lot of time training R during his rehab. So, I've been making sure to spend plenty of time training and playing with her. She's a lucky dog to get to play in meadows full of flowers.

But she and I are excited for the day that R joins us too!

That's the goal - and that's why I've been running myself ragged trying to keep up with all his rehab!

The Desert Trip - Like Visiting Mars

Back to our desert trip - After a few days at K's Rock, we moved onto another beloved campsite. We found this site more than a decade ago but it's become popular since then. We always try to choose very "unpopular" dates and days of the week to visit it now. We did that perfectly this time!

This was the view from our campsite. As you can see, we ran into some storms during our first couple of days there.

Any running in this area requires boots for dogs due to slickrock and cacti. It was a little sad to see only one set drying on the boulder because R wasn't running.

As you can see, Shyla was running pretty happily in this set of Ultrapaw boots (a gift from Lily and Edward - Thank you!).

However, somehow, she shed her hind boots when I wasn't looking. I searched and searched and searched - and I found one of the two lost ones.

Despite the never-ending boot struggle, Shyla and I had fun on our mountain bike rides. It's like riding a bike on Mars because the terrain is so alien. (This photo was pre-boot-loss).

Of course, R was recuperating from surgery so he stayed around camp all the time. He seemed to soak up the sun like a lizard as he relaxed.

We enjoyed looking at the petroglyphs near our campsite. It is upsetting, however, to see the vandalism grow by the year. The "Joh..." in the right is obviously not ancient.

The sunsets at this site are sublime. I discovered the amazing sunset light here first with Angel K. The tradition of sunset photos of my chocolate lab has continued with sweet Shyla. There's something about chocolate fur, red-orange rocks, and sweet eyes that melts my heart.

The sunlight turned a deeper red as sunset approached.

No doubt, we'll be visiting this site again in the fall. We have some "sneaky" plans to try to visit when it should be deserted, like it was on this last trip.

When we moved to Colorado many years ago, I had no idea that we'd fall in love with the desert. But we have. Desert time is a highlight of every year!

Super Cute Cubs Sunday

All of these photos were from 5/7 and 5/8. The two cubs played with abandon and took nursing breaks with mom. When mom wasn't visible, she was watching from inside the den.

Please Mom, can we have a drink?

Well, okay, but it's not very comfortable.

And, I have to be the lookout!

There are lots more photos/videos to come. These ones caught my fancy today!

Short Update on our Black Dog

Yesterday, on the 7 week anniversary of R's CUE surgery, he went to our vet for physical therapy. Our vet likes to call herself a "rain cloud" because she tends to talk about all the "not so good" aspects of a dog's condition. She's a great vet - so we don't mind this habit one bit.

With that background, you can imagine how happy we were to hear her say that R was doing fabulously! He now has a greater range of motion in his elbow than ever before in his life. He was born with elbow dysplasia so his flexibility was inhibited right from the start.

Our vet gave us a new set of exercises to do this week with R, including things like a one-armed push-up on his "bad forelimb", playing tug, and crawling forward and backwards under a chair. Obviously, he's reached a whole new level where we are working hard to bring back the strength around his surgical elbow.

I will soon have a video of his gait and his exercises. The only slightly worrisome thing is that he still has a rather obvious limp but our vet feels confident that it will go away as he learns to trust that limb again.

R's favorite rehab instruction is that he must chew a bone while holding it between his paws for 10-15 minutes per day. This helps strengthen the small muscles around his elbow. Until a few days ago, he figured out ways to chew the bone without touching it with his left paw (that's his surgical limb). As you can see, he finally started using his left paw a few days ago! Another great sign!

He's thinking to himself, "this is waaaay better than one-armed push-ups!".

As a celebration of his great checkup, we walked him up to our "sunset lookout point". He's supposed to do four 20 minute leash walks per day now. Our celebration walk pushed the limit a tiny bit (26 minutes - don't tell our vet). We won't do it again but it sure was nice to have a pack sunset hike for the first time in 7 weeks.

The sunset was incredible!

The brilliant orange clouds spread all across the horizon so I couldn't get them all in one camera frame.

As the bright orange started to fade, the rest of the sky was filled with pastel colors. As we watched the sky, a hermit thrush started singing its mournful and beautiful song. Hermit thrushes are my favorite birds due to their song. They'll sing from now until around the middle of July.

For R, next week will be 8 weeks post-CUE surgery, and he'll have elbow x-rays taken to check that the implants (new weight bearing surfaces) are looking good. If they are, he'll be allowed to start running just a little bit. The first day will be 5 minutes... but it will be a happy day!

Nighttime in the Desert

We saw some intriguing and beautiful flowers in the Utah desert. It was a wetter spring than most recent years so the colors were incredible, like in this cactus bloom!

The intriguing flowers were part of the "Four O'Clock Family", which includes flowers that close during the day to preserve moisture and open at night. Here was one example. It looked like a cluster of little white balls during the day.

As the sun was setting...

... and I was taking sunset photos of Shyla...

 ... the little balls were opening up so that they could be pollinated by Sphinx Moths. The blossoms were gorgeous, especially with the dark background. It was hard to believe that this was the same plant as I'd seen during the day!

Another flower in that family was called the "Showy Four O'Clock Flower". It was closed during the heat of the day. This photo was just as it was closing in the morning.

Then, around sunset, the "showy" blossoms opened in all their glory!

It's a flower that needs lots of rain to flourish so we haven't seen it in recent years.

So, on those moonlit nights when the stars spun around the North Star, flowers were blooming under the incredible desert sky.

I found the Four O'Clock flowers to be gloriously beautiful and fascinating!!! What a cool trick for surviving in the dry and hot climate of the desert!



Today, I am joining Dory's Flower Blog Hop!