Swim Lessons

 I have been putting Niki in the larger pool with great hopes that she would swim. Due to the fact she is such a skittish dog, we have been taking this very slow….she is just not moving her legs but rather allowing me to move her around….so opted to get a little life jacket for her. Works so much better for her. She still panics a bit but no doubt in time she will be swimming as well as enjoying it. I thought I would share our progress with you for it has been a little while since posting anything. Please follow safety rules when placing a dog in a pool…my dogs do not have access to the pool unless supervised.

Oh…forgot to mention…Photography by Michael 😉 A quick lesson in how to focus for it was set to manual….and he was off and running.

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Water Dogs…

Last few days finds Nik–Nak very stiff and weak. We still have not found a pool so rather then wait Mike made a trip to Target and picked up two kiddie pools (not sure how long they will last even though the dogs nails are short….easy to puncture a hole).

First thing this morning filled it up and started introducing her to it.

She sure did think it was an evil….refused to go near it. In the end, she is such a chow hound and will work for food. I of course managed to photograph the process….take a few minutes to sit back and enjoy

Hopefully we can get her to feeling better, and help her to regain her strength once again….keep your fingers crossed for her!

***Updated 6-18-07  I thought since this is our “New” blog I would just put a short little explanation to the above for several of the posts and the video of Niki’s rehab had been lost in the move.

Six months ago she injured her spine, due to the Emergency Hospitals incompetence more then 12 hours later she was completely paralyzed in her hind area. No bm control….due to the location of injury she also had no bladder control meaning she would leak when the bladder was full, a pooling effect causes bacteria and infection so She needs to have her bladder emptied manually. We went a head with surgery which was very expensive and were told afterwards due to the fact she showed little improvement in the weeks that followed surgery there was little hope of her regaining any feeling in the hind area. Fast forward six months and lots of hard work with massage, water/treadmill therapy and the use of her cart when needed she has regained feeling, strength. In this blog we will be posting her rehab and exercises, improvements and set backs.

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