Day 17: Machine from Mars … ps: He DID IT! ..

OMG!! What an exciting morning!

I think I now truly know the meaning of gobsmacked. When your brain hasn’t caught up with what your eyes are seeing and you’re just left there sort of ‘hanging’ … well that was me at about 8am this morning.

Our morning starts as usual. He wakes me up with the sound of a squealing baby seal, I go to greet him in his pen and for the 6th night in a row we’ve had no nappy and no accidents.

I’m going to be brave and say we no longer have an issue with night time piddling - one box ticked ✔️

Out we go into the garden just like we do first off every morning. It’s cold out here and he’s not keen on staying out for long. This is a pooch that likes his creatures comforts of a roaring fire, not cold, wet and windy.

Nevertheless, I persevere with trying to get him to have a little piddle. He’s doing his usual

standing pretty well out here if I put him into position. He graciously lets out a tiny wee just to appease me and now he’s scooted back to the door to go back in.

I slip passed him back into the house and close the doors leaving him outside. I just need to quickly pop a puppy pad down by his food bowl before I carry ‘his lordship’ inside for breakfast.

I head back to get him. He’s sitting by the door staring in looking sad that he’s been locked out (the same sad face he has always given me when I have to shut him out in the garden to be able to vacuum the house - the scary Dyson is his nemesis!)

He sees me approach and wants my attention to know he wants to come in, so right in front of my eyes - HE STOOD UP!!! … all on his own, he’s just pulled himself into a stand and is stood there looking at me.

He got into this stand with no help from me!

Woo hoo!!!!

I open the door to go out to him and he attempts to walk forward. Not a bad effort but I can clearly see the right leg is stronger and the left leg is flopping behind.

I’m now trying to get him to repeat this achievement and get it on camera but of course he won’t perform on queue!

See him on video below… I have finally managed to catch it this evening:

Elated, we go inside for breakfast. He gobbles it all down as usual and just like his performance of the last two mornings; upon the last morsel being licked from the bowl he lets out the biggest piddle that floods over the puppy pad and covers the kitchen floor.

What was my lovely freshly bathed, beautiful smelling pup is now slipping around in a lake of pee.

A simple solution occurs to me; tomorrow morning I shall pop his coat on and breakfast shall be served outside! Let’s see if that is the answer to saving my kitchen floor!

We go through his usual physio and he’s doing ok but it’s so very frustrating that he won’t just stand again like he did in the garden earlier. I definitely can see more of an effort in him to do so today though.

A Machine from Mars…

A new machine I ordered has arrived today. It’s a scalp and body massager than can also be used on pets.

It was £39.99 from Amazon and I thought it was worth a try. Something else to add into our routine to stimulate the nerves and give his muscles a different deep tissue sensation.

At first the noise of it (it is actually pretty quiet) is driving him nutty and he’s getting all playful. I distract him with his fluffy pink pig. It works. He then lets me use it all over his body.

Sadly; it was at the expense of Mr Pig who has seen better days after having his stuffing ripped out of him.

Die Pig Die …. “Then mummy please buy me a new one!”

We have a lovely visit this morning from his Aunty Lotty who wants to see him in his ‘baby bouncer‘ and he gives her a good show. He’s standing and letting me do his leg exercises like a model pupil, all whilst giving her the ‘you will adore me eyes’ which of course she falls for.

Whilst he’s showing little signs everyday of progress which undoubtedly spurs me on to keep going and trying more and more things with him, in myself I feel like a sinking ship.

There’s the pressure of keeping up with work (I know I have a good team behind me but I am still needed!) , the house looks like an absolute bomb site, I need to catch up on my washing and clean the house. I just seem to only be having time to keep cleaning the floors and nurse Lloris at the moment! I can’t remember the last time I went through my skin care routine before bed, wore a full face of make-up or styled my hair. All sounds ridiculous I know, but it’s these things that make us feel like the person that we are, and when things go into disarray it just stresses you out and gets you down a little - well in my case anyway!

Mess such as this is just another thing to tidy! … but at least he’s having fun!!

They do say; untidy house, untidy mind and I firmly believe (for me) that is very true!

But all of this can be easily fixed with a big focus tomorrow to get back on top of things! I can do this!

This week Sunday is not going to be for Snoozing!

My own struggles aside, all these rehab things I am doing are clearly working for Lloris, so forge on we must!

To recap; our rehab routine is currently made up of:

• Supplements (as listed yesterday) in home cooked food everyday
  

• Physio exercises 3-4 x per day
  

• Electric toothbrush therapy with every session of physio
  

• The massage machine with every physio session

• ‘Frenchie Baby Bouncer’ twice per day - just for 5 or so minutes at a time. (If anyone else is thinking of doing this, take advice from your vet, every pooch has different recovery needs I would imagine)

• Electro Accupuncture once per week

• Weekly Hydrotherapy hopefully starting on Monday - fingers crossed

• Red light laser therapy to start from Sunday when it arrives.
  

• And of course; plenty of rest in his penned off area(approx 1m x 2.5m)

• And not forgetting plenty of cuddles and lots and lots of mummy love.
  

Can’t wait to try out our new Infrared Cold Therapy Laser Machine on him tomorrow! ….