We've been so bad about posting since Fiona started showing signs that she's defintely back to her old self.... sorry to those who have been trying to follow! It's only been about a month since Fiona had her surgery, which we sometimes forget. When she returned home, we swore that we wouldn't let her jump on the ottoman anymore or let her sleep on the bed, for fear that she would jump down in the middle of the night. A month after surgery, we've let her charm her way back to the bed and it seems impossible to keep her from jumping on the ottoman/green chair that we sit on every eveing. However, we have taught her to sit next to the bed if she wants up and when she wants down, she sits up in bed and looks at the door.
The green chair is another story. We sometimes forget that she doesn't understand when we tell her she can't jump on the ottoman because we don't want her to get hurt again, but we constantly find ourselves giving her that lecture... it's been quite a struggle! I'm guessing the only way to get her to not jump on and off the ottoman is to keep her off of it all together. I don't know if we're ready to have her sit by herself while we're in the comfy green chair yet. And in our defense, her doctor did say that it would probably be impossible to keep her off the ottoman since it's what she knows. Also, since the ottoman doesn't sit too high off the ground, it shouldn't cause any problems in the future as long as we keep the jumping on/off to a limit. So, when we are home, we let her sit with us, but when Fiona is home by herself, we flip the ottoman over and she lays on her nice new area rug (I bought a beautiful cream colored rug 1 week before Fiona's back issue - it wasn't really meant for her to play on).
Fiona has also lost her svelt figure since being home. When she was taking 4 types of meds 3 times a day, we were wrapping her pills in her favorite treats such as swiss cheese and turkey. She stopped her meds about two weeks ago, but we haven't gotten out of the habit of feeding her this stuff yet and her activity level has been limited. A combination of goodies and less exercise = Fiona the fatty! Luckily, we're able to increase the amount of time we can walk her by 5 minutes every week. So, she's up to 10 minute walks this week. Next week, we'll be able to walk her for 15 minutes. Eventually, we hope she'll be able to play at the park again. We swore that we wouldn't take her back to the doggy park because that is where she was the day we had to take her to the hospital, but we realize that just because she's had surgery, we can't keep her from the things that puppies love, like playing at the park with other dogs, or jumping on the chair to sit with you, or snuggling in bed at night. It wouldn't be fair to her... so we just have to get over being so scared that she's going to get hurt again that we keep her from doing anything. Plus she's a Frenchie, so she's bound to get into some sort of trouble again.
