We’ve All Got Twinges
Over the past year and a half of owning Lilly, or, more accurately, being her loyal servants, we have seen her flourish into a dog that we can mostly trust off lead. Yes, she still has moments of deafness when she spots a brazen squirrel, or does a runner after a fluffy deer that was happily minding its own business (that's why the 'mostly' was in there), but both Damian and I can now take her out for a walk around the park off the lead 95% of the time, and it's brilliant.
Lilly readying herself for a bit of squirrel chasing
That said there are consequences for all of us, and they involve a bit of pain.
As mentioned in a previous Tale, I have already been damaged by walking Lilly when my wrist got all bent out of shape with a wayward on-lead moment, so now with Lilly off the lead, and not tugging me about, you would think the likelihood of damage would be lessened, but no.
What has occurred since has been as a result of trying to keep an eye on her as she wanders off-track, and not looking at the muddy, or icy, or undulating terrain underfoot. So far I have done an epic, legs in the air, black ice bum drop - that was painful, a back-jolting slide down a muddy track, wrong-footed myself and twinged my hip on a wayward rock and thwacked myself in the face when I didn't spot a small, but surprisingly inflexible branch across my path.
I know I'm clumsy, but having a dog definitely seems to have given rise to more damaging outcomes.
Damian has acquired damages too, though these come from being a delusional dog owner who is the wrong side of 50. "Why delusional, and what's wrong with being over 50?" I hear you say.
Well, when he decides he is going to do a spot of running to keep up with Lilly (may I remind you she is half Whippet!), and hasn't really run in the past 10+ years....and is sporting a tad more poundage than he should, then you can imagine the result - aches, pains and ibuprofen. I told you, DELUSIONAL!
Lastly, Lilly's off-lead exploits have also caused her some injuries.
There have been two different swollen eyes incidents from the fact that she becomes completely unable to see obstuctions in her path once to blood-lust of the squirrel chase kicks in. She will happily charge willy-nilly into sticking-out-twig territory if there is even a glimpse of a fluffy tail.
Recently a new affliction has come to light, that is proving harder to cure. There are a lot of dog friends in the park, and now she is free to play chase with them, she loves to run about hell-bent-for-leather style with a big dose of whirling dervish thrown in for good measure. She will run, and run, and run, and generally only stops when the other dogs go home, and at some point she pulled something in her back leg, resulting in a sorry looking limp when she gets up from bed (I think she's copying me).
The limp goes away once she is walking, but returns after a good run, so we kept her on lead-rest to let things heal.
Once she was fine we let her off the lead, but because she's a big daft pudding, she went straight back to bombing around (check out the video below) and did it again, so it's back to lead-rest, with the added bonus that it's probably safer for me too.