I realized that I haven't posted here much recently, so it seems to be time for an update on my baby, Joshua!

Two months ago I got laid off from my job. The bright side of this otherwise not-so-bright situation was that I'd have lots of time to be with Joshua this spring. I had plans for lots of play time, lots of walks, and lots of trips to his favorite local dog park.

Unfortunately a week later during one of our visits to the park, Joshua slipped while jumping over a big log and hurt his leg! I took him to the vet to get examined and x-rayed, and they determined he had either a bad sprain or a minor tear to a ligament on his knee (they compared it to an ACL tear for humans). The good news was he didn't need surgery - he could recover on his own at home. The bad news...his recovery was dependent on us severely restricting his activity for 8 weeks! :(

So, we're talking no walks, no playing, no running, no stairs, no trips to the dog park, no chasing the cats around the house, etc. Basically we had to keep him calm and as inactive as possible for as long as possible. OMG it was so hard - Joshua is SUCH an active dog! But, somehow, he and I both got through it. We live in a three-story house, so we had to block off the stairs and carry him up and down when necessary, leash him to the bed post at night so he wouldnn't jump up and down off of our bed, only take him outside long enough to do his business and then come right back in, etc. It was really frustrating, but I tried to play with him and give him as much attention as possible. He got lots of toys and treats and Kongs, and he rode pretty much everywhere possible with me in the car since that seemed better than crating him or tying him up in the house to keep him from running or jumping on the couch while I was gone. It was quite a hassle, but luckily I don't think his injury was that bad because he seemed to recover pretty quickly. The vet said we could start doing some short walks and letting him walk up and down the stairs after 3-4 weeks, so it got much easier after that.

Now he's pretty much back to his normal activity level, thank goodness! We went to an off-leash dog park for the first time last weekend, and if the weather is nice I think I'll take him again tomorrow. I'm still a little worried about the way he likes to jump off of the really high agility equipment at our local dog park because I don't want him to re-injure his leg. I always try to discourage him from those jumps, but he follows other dogs up onto the equipment and then just flies off the top to the ground in a split second, before I can get over there to stop him and make him walk down properly. Silly dog!

Anyway, that's been the big excitement in Joshua's world for the past couple of months. I think he likes me being home (I still haven't found a new job) and it's going to be a big change for him once I start working full time again and both my husband and I are gone all day long.