Beanie’s recovery from her neck strain has been going very well, in fact at this point I’d say she’s currently at about 95% operational efficiency. This means she can once again raid cups, go mountaineering on the furniture, steal food off our plates and tear up mail, but she’s still a bit cautious about doing a full body shake sometimes and hasn’t yet given her brother’s tail a robust tugging. Her recovery is a mixed blessing to be honest. On the one hand it’s very nice to see her back to her naughty ways, but on the other hand we’ve just had a bout of full-on flu during which she was well enough to take advantage of our weakened state!
Ever gluttons for punishment, we’ve been working to restore that final 5% of Beanieness via massage and other means. Initially the massage was not particularly well received by the Beanster. She’s always been a bit suspicious of physical contact and usually the only time you can get a decent cuddle out of her is if you’ve spilt a bit of food on your clothes; a suckling Beanie is a compliant Beanie!
Though suspicious at first…
..Beanie has come to accept that massage is a good thing
Cranial massages are particularly good!
She’s even more accepting of plain old cuddles now!
Biggles was well up for massage right from the start of course. He doesn’t actually have an injury as such, but just try depriving him of an indulgent pampering session!
Is Biggles the reincarnation of a Roman emperor? Don’t you think there should be a slave popping food into his mouth right now?
In addition to the massage, our pups have also been having regular sessions with a peanut. You might think that a peanut would only be good for one quick chomp, but the peanut we’ve been using is large, blue and inflatable. It’s similar to the “swiss” balance ball we’ve used in the past, but the longer peanut shape allows the dog to adopt a more natural stance.
During each three minute session each of our pups gets served half of their teatime meal on the peanut. Initially we steadied the peanut using our feet, but as Beanie & Biggles have become more adept at balancing, we’ve been letting it wobble about more to increase the challenge. As with humans this kind of exercise promotes better proprioception and will hopefully lessen the chances of future injuries. It’s also quite cute to watch!
