Della wags, Trooper walks

I'm happy to report that Della is feeling better. She wouldn't eat yesterday evening or this morning and consequently didn't get her pain medication. I'm taking her out on a leash to keep her from running around in the yard and potentially tearing out her stitches. Around noon we went out for a walk and I took her over to the now vacant puppy kennel. I put her still uneaten food into the feeding trough. She would always clean up whatever the puppies had left behind, and sure enough she ate it all up, including the pain reliever.

I could tell by the way she's acting and moving that she's beginning to feel better. For the evening feeding I took her back to the puppy kennel where I could let her off leash. I just sat her food dish on the steps and left her with it. When I came back all the food was gone, so I feel pretty confident that we are on the road to recovery. I'm going to be strict on restricting her activity for at least a week though, and I know she won't be happy about that; nor will Serena, but at least she's wagging her tail again now.

Today was cloudy and cool enough that I thought we could get Trooper out for a short walk. I haven't walked him all summer because it's just been too hot and Trooper can't handle a lot of heat or activity any more. Mostly he's been going out at night and very early morning, doing the slow, senior dog stroll around the property. Trooper used to go out to the front fence and chase cars as they went up or down the road. Now I usually find him just laying in a shaded and grassy spot out front watching them go by.

One of the puppy adopters gave me a quart mason jar full of congealed chicken fat, made from cooking chicken feet, telling me it would be good for making soup (and I'm sure it would be) or good for the dogs. It's a good source of collagen, as well as chondroitin sulphate, and hyaluronic acid. The last of those is new to me but is touted as being a fountain of youth. The first two I know as being beneficial to bones and joints and Trooper has old man bones and joints that could use some help. I've been giving it to him for about a week now and he does seem a little perkier, although it could be that he's just more excited about meal time now that he's getting some congealed chicken fat with his food. Whatever it is, he likes it and I'm going to start buying chicken feet and cook up a batch of my own.

Between the heat of the summer and all the puppies, there hasn't been any pictures of Trooper on the blog for quite a while, so I'm posting quite a few today.