And I’m starting to feel FABULOUS! I’ve only been in my foster home a few weeks, but i’ve already lost some weight (thank you for sending me treats though, I don’t think i’d make it through without them!) and if I keep up with my physio exercises i’m going to be fitter than my lovely foster people soon ????. I am not quite a bendy worm yet (that is just Mr. Jiminy Cricket apparently) but I have made it to pipe-cleaner status – not completely fluid, still a bit fuzzy round the edges, but starting to bend into shapes I couldn’t even have dreamt about previously!

Better still, all this means I am in a lot less pain, I have more stamina, i’m more agile and i’m not chewing at my feet (welllllll, the odd little nibble maybe when no-one is looking, but you’d be amazed what delicacies you can find between your toes you know – the necessity of being on a diet an’ all). And just look at how much better my posture is already!

‘The diet’ is working for my skin too, no more itchy-scratchiness for me AND my eyes are looking loads more shiny and less weepy too. The staining round my eyes will take quite some time to go and we may still have further dietary tweaks to make yet apparently, but I don’t mind because I already feel loads better.

So, I thought you might like to see me learning some of my physio exercises. Aunty Lisa is a bit of a stickler for precision (we know this will surprise you!) so the lesson was mostly for my lovely foster people so they could work on their technique to make sure I end up in the right position – but every repetition gets a treat, so as far as i’m concerned, whether i’m moving straight and working the right bits of me or not, it’s all good!

This video is of me starting to do ‘poles’ to help me move more fluidly. The poles are spaced a looooooong way apart at the moment as it was just to help me practice walking with my head forward and not tipped to the side and my body straight without my bottom off at an angle and my tail skewed in the other direction and that means making sure the person going with me stands in the right place. You can see me make him come right back to the beginning and start again when he goes a bit off piste ????. Honestly, you can’t get the staff sometimes! But don’t worry, Aunty Lisa and I made him practice it quite a few times! When I can go over these poles with big gaps between them properly, they then have to be moved to a special distance apart and that will help me move my legs better! I have a feeling it might then be me going off piste for a bit, not my foster Dad!

And we also went through some of my stretches. This is one of my neck bends. When we started I didn’t like moving my neck very much at all and struggled to go just a little bit either side (I would move my legs round instead to avoid bending my neck) but now I can go right round just past my shoulder (although i’m still not quite even on both sides…… me and my lovely foster people like to practice the easy side more….. but we were sprung and have to do extras on the harder side now, but only smoothly and gently!)

And I am learning to sit nice and straight without my legs sticking out at funny angles and I can do all sorts of changes from sit to down to stand which I couldn’t do before either. I can even take a couple of steps backwards.

We have apparently, and I quote, ‘barely scratched the surface’ yet ????. This week we’re starting to build a bit of distance on my walks and continuing to work on my handling and grooming skills and adding accuracy and duration into my little exercises and I have to do a back foot target and learn to walk through a little tray ready for my baths. And I only get 5 minutes off every hour to sleep (well, maybe 45 minutes every hour) and that’s only if I’m good so please can you all send me a few more treats to help keep my strength up!

And at the end of my last session, I got to meet the infamous Lady Bug and Huey Puppy too. We did lots of sniffing and pottering around and I nearly thought about playing with them…. but decided it would be a little forward on a first date! But we did wee on Aunty Lisa’s poor pansies about 25 times, so that was fun ????. And you’ll be able to see how much more freely i’m starting to move on the video too.

I do need a few more of my supplements and dinners, so if anyone could help with those, I would be really grateful. My wishlist is just here:

https://caninethinking.com/rescue-btrf-ernie