So a bit of an update. Two months ago Raven could barely walk or stand up and was going downhill fast by the day. After surgery to repair a herniated disk in her neck (pics on page 44 of this thread), the improvement has been amazing. Here is a video of her at physio on the treadmill in the water tank, and then another clip of her doing some exercises at home:

So the "ignore him" comment was made by my wife, and the "him" is me of course...to quote the late philosopher Rodney Dangerfield, "I don't get no respect!"

My impression is that Raven had George Jetson in mind as she was on the treadmill...."Get me off this crazy thing!"

The exercise at home is to coax her into a narrow passage, and then give her no choice but to back out rather than turn around. A couple of chairs and piece of luggage work for creating the passage, and rice crackers are the treat. As you can see Remi is very patient and knows that this is not his time to get in the way, so he just sits quietly and waits for his treat for being a good dog.

So although Raven will never fully recover, and has some small deficits remaining, I could not be more pleased with the outcome. We went from being pretty convinced she was going to have to be put down, or would die in surgery, to having a pretty normal (as normal as these dogs get) back in the family.

Thanks to everyone who wished us well along the way.

Cheers, Al

 

Wow, excellent news Al!

 

Thats so awesome @Archer. Having a sick pet is so hard. Happy to hear the news!

 

Walked in off the street Christmas Day 2016.... Hard to imagine him not being at home with us.

 

Merry Christmas, indeed!

 

Your McKinley is a most handsome fellow. Nice pose! It’s all about boxes and bags, eh?

Tommy was indeed deaf (blue eyes); he was a far too clever lad who ran our household for over 15 years. His deafness wasn’t much of an issue other than ensuring we woke him gently. He was a very quick study and cunning as hell; vision was, naturally, his keenest sense. He woke us every morning at 5:30 with a meow he couldn’t hear. He was very talkative and needless to say, rather loud. He is missed every day.

 

Thank you for the compliment on McKinley's good looks. I would pass it on, buy he already knows he quite handsome. LOL Yes, it is all about bags and boxes that he can get into. He is the largest, most long geared cat we have ever owned. He sometimes sits with his front paws curled in under him. My wife thinks he is afraid he will get stepped on because he is so large. He isn't afraid to be right under your feet though, especially when you first come home from work and he hasn't seen you in 12 hours. He will run right up and purposely bump and rub against you. And, at his size you know you have been bumped and rubbed. He is our only cat now, for nearly 2 yrs, but when we first brought him home from the shelter, we still had India, an older Bengal female who exerted her dominance over him. He is mostly an inside cat, but when one of us is going to be outside, we let him go with us. Our front door is a latch style handle, not a knob, and he will stretch up and try and bring down the latch on his own, using his front paws, when we tell him he can go out. So, he is observant and clever also. They say our pets can understand 200 words and I believe that. I have a 12 yr old daughter, who thinks she is 17 and sometimes I will just get exasperated with whatever is going on that day, as dad can do no right, and just retreat into my den. I won't be there long before McKinley comes in and jumps up on my lap, curls up in it and sings to me at the top of his lungs. He has the loudest purr of any cat I have ever seen. He will purr so hard that he squeeks like he has a belt slipping and will occasionally make himself hack, gag and cough from purring so loud and hard. So, yeah.....he owns and runs this household also. Thank you for your interest. I know what it is like to miss a cat you have had for 13 to 17 years. You can never forget them and in a happy, sad way will make you smile every time you think of them and their quirks and habits.





McK

 

When we closed up the camper for the winter here in the North Eastern U.S. we brought McKinley's cat bed home and placed it in my den for the winter. After a hard day of watching the squirrels and running from window to window for a better view, one deserves a good nap.

McK

 

Boney at the water bucket, Tilly sitting and the new addition Springer ( with the hose nozzle I should have removed )

 

Miss Moneypenny next to an Aston that she wishes was hers.... (and is unfortunately not mine lol)

 

Very difficult with dogs and muscular skeletal problems Al. I have a neck injury from a car accident and so I am careful and avoid movements that will flare it up and give me pain. Tricky with a dog because they don't understand the need to avoid certain activities and only moderate their movements due to pain. Pleased to see that there is some degree of success for Raven.
I couldn't walk properly for a couple of years but my Japanese Akita 'Alfred' hardly moved from my side.

here he is trying to sit on my Father in law.

and this is his sparring partner Charlie Chow.

They both passed away a few years back but have left some very amusing and lovely memories.
Cheers Jonathan.

 

Sad I know but this is my first attempt at a video upload

The wee boy obviously not making a great impression.

 

I follow that rule also but I make it up in petting, well that goes for any cat I see.

 

Nothing more intense than the love of an Asian dog.

 

If you think that's intense, wait till you try the love of an Asian man

 

Thanks Jonathan - yes keeping her from doing things she should not is made more difficult as she feels better. Just yesterday I took her out for some business and when she was hopping back up the steps into the house, she decided to jump from the ground up to the landing in one go, not bothering with the steps in between. Lost her footing on slippery ground and the result was a face plant on the concrete landing...

She was okay but I could not help thinking in that split second that she broke her neck. We were told that she could never be walked with a regular collar on again, so we know her neck is more fragile now. The problem is at 11.5 years old, she still thinks she is a puppy!

Cheers, Al

 

He is! I just played your video about 20 times and she still gets upset when it stops so I have to play it again and again.

 

I can understand, I tend to look at it quite often

 

T

That may well be true @Bumper ... but I have enough pain in my life already than you very much mate!

 

Very true @Larry S. The loyalty of that Akita was something that will always remain with me. The Chow Chow was a funny fellow. Very nice temprament but wouldn't listen to a word I said. If I told him to "Sit"!... he just looked at me as if I was 'off my head'! Here they are crammed into the back of my ex-wife's 1969 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible.



Lovely dogs but the trouble was my ex-wife didn't know where to draw the line with pets so She decided to get a 'Vietnamese pot bellied miniature pig'. Trouble is she knew as much about pigs as I know about watches. Fakk all!

She drove 100 miles to Wiltshire (in the West of England), gave a farmer £30 and came back to London with this...

She said "isn't he adorable? They're very rare you know!
I said "point number 1. That ain't a Vietnamese pot bellied pig! That's just an ordinary fakkin piglet!
Point number 2. If the dog's don't murder it and eat it first... the fakkin thing is going to end up weighing more than the pair of us together and we will be up to our knees in pig shite!"