Well, first of all, I took Joey over to the barn with me when I went to feed the horses yesterday evening. It stormed big time in the afternoon, so Al had put Ladybug inside in her stall. Now those of you who know her know that Bug HATES dogs. She stomped a coyote who came into her stall last year to death. So I wasn't sure exactly what would happen when Joey and Bug met, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be pretty.
Okay. So when I first got him out of the truck he stood stock still for a good five minutes. That's his reaction to new and strange things. He freezes in absolute silence with the hair on his back standing straight up. When he finally decided it might be safe to move, we walked over to one of Torri's horses in the cattle pen and they just looked at each other and he walked on. When we got out to the pasture, Duke ran up to the fence and they touched noses and sniffed for a while. Great! Looks like they're going to be friends. So I decided at that point to walk back to the barn and see about him and Bug.
We walked inside and Torri was in there with one of her horses in cross ties down at the other end of the barn, so he was paying attention to them initially. I fastened his long lead to one of the posts so that if he went to the end of his lead he would still be about 4 or 5 feet from Bug's stall. He turned around and noticed her about the same time she noticed him. She charged the front of her stall and stood there with her ears pinned just glaring at him and he froze and stared back at her. The two of them stood there like that forever! No one made a sound. No one moved. But it looked like if either of them had access to the other it would NOT have been good. I left them alone and went ahead and fed everyone and after about 10 minutes they were STILL staring at each other. So I went ahead and put Joey back in the car since he seemed to be afraid to take his eyes off of Bug for fear she would come after him. Probably wise. When Bug comes home we're going to have to be very sure her paddock is completely, totally, absolutely dog-proof!
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I talked to Joey's physical therapist, Jennifer, this morning when I dropped him off and she tells me he's doing very well in therapy. She plans to reduce the water level in the water treadmill to somewhere between knee and thigh level which will require him to put a bit more weight on his leg than the present higher level does, and on Monday next week she will begin working with him on a ramp and stairs on dry land!
Jennifer is getting married on the 27th, and will be gone for a week, so I'm not sure if Joey will continue his therapy while she's out or not. I guess LSU probably has someone to back her up, but I forgot to ask.
Anyway, Jennifer suggested that on the days between his visits to her we should take Joey down to the River Road entry to the bike path up on top of the levee across from the Vet School and run him up and down that ramp and stairs that bike riders use to get up to the top of the levee. Hmm. HE may be able to manage that, but us?? I'm not so sure about that!
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