23/09/2024
CW: Dog illness (but also recovery!)
Sorry that I've slightly disappeared off of the face of the earth.
At the end of September Lily, my most dependable, sassy, judgemental little medical alert dog had a FCE (Spinal Stroke). It was terrifying. She was rushed down to the amazing team at who took wonderful care of her.
While it's still serious, it's about the best diagnosis we could have hoped for. Her prognosis is that she recovers (hopefully!) full range of movement, with ongoing physio. She's on limited exercise but the condition isn't likely to be causing her pain. She's made absolutely wonderful progress, and has returned to her usual opinionated self ❤️
She (somewhat obviously) isn't working as an assistance dog right now. Which has been an additional challenge for both of us. Lizzie has been filling in where she can work wise, but it's very very different having your adult assistance dog who's been working with you for years and could do the job blindfolded, to your wonderful but still very young ADiT, who I won't push past where she's ready to be.
One of the knock on effects is that I have much much higher levels of fatigue than before.
So thank you for all the patience everyone's shown me in terms of my messaging, rearranging and generally awful admin.
Image Description: Lily Schnauzer (from before the incident), looking up at the camera. She's considering whether I smell like she's going to have to alert soon or not.