Mr Rams

The past few days have been really good. Rams is walking and balancing much better now. His front leg isn’t protruding out and he isn’t twisting his back so much. He’s managing the stairs really well too only needing help when he’s tired. He’s even confident enough to jump out of the back of the car, I just hold onto the handle on his harness to float him down.

He’s off all his antibiotics and pain killers so I’ve started his pro-biotics. No signs of intense pain and his cramps haven’t been seen in a few days. He is still a little stiff and sore after a long rest but I expect he will be like that for a while.

He is still sleeping a lot but when he’s up and about he wants to play, so I thought now is the perfect time to start him on some exercises.

A few months before the surgeries I was teaching him ‘sit’ ‘stand’ ‘drop’ and ‘tap’ with hand commands as he was quite stubborn with verbal commands. He was doing really well, well enough to drop or sit eagerly without me showing him the command. So now i’ll be teaching him again. Only thing is that I’ve forgotten some of the hand signals I gave him. Great job by me. I’ll have to slowly figure that out myself and then make sure I write it all down *face palm*

He is very eager to do the ‘tap’ command though, which is him tapping my hand with his front paw. Surprisingly his balance is really good. I only do 3 or 4 and leave it at that. The only thing with this exercise is that now he gives me a ‘tap’ every time he wants a treat. And at times he will repeatedly ‘tap’ me. Didn’t see that coming.

I’ve placed a soft pillow in front of his food bowl to start him on something unsteady to help his balance and strength. I also get him to place his two front paws on and off his bed (it’s quite thick) and reward him with a treat.

When he comes to the gym with me I get him to do the same thing but on the gym plates. I just place a few plates on top of each other to add some challenge when it gets easy. I find this type of exercise has been helping him walk backwards too as he is wobbly so has to concentrate on guiding himself backwards.

Mel x