10-23-11 Max goes for a walk

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, Max had regained his hearing after Cyberknife for a week or so and as we reduced his prednisone dose his hearing started to disappear. I emailed with his neurologist about this and he suggested that we not lower his dose any further than 10mg every other day and if I saw any other signs or symptoms of brain swell to bump his dose up to the previous level.

Max takes the lead on our walk!

I thought that since he used to be able to hear I'd like to see if keeping him on 10mg / day would help him regain his hearing.. Well.. it took about 3 days but he can hear again.  He has a follow up appointment scheduled for Nov 1.

Another thing that I've noticed with Max is that he is interacting more! He started interacting more even with the reduced prednisone level, so I think he's feeling better overall.

Sniffing logs and seeing who's been there before!

Today when I pulled out the leashes Max came over and wagged his tail and wanted his collar put on. Then he actually went to the car and wanted to get inside to go to the park and go for a walk!  When we got to the park he jumped right up in the car and even wanted to jump out of the back of the car on his own!  He immediately left his mark on a tree and then took the short cut through some bushes to the path in the woods. He stood there for a few seconds to decide which way to go and then led the other 2 dogs into the woods for a walk!  He stopped to sniff, left

Wait a second.. the world is spinning!

 his mark and was trying to lead everyone while I was trying to keep everyone going at a snails pace. I didn't want him to over do it.  After a few minutes he stopped and stood still for a bit, then kept going and went and sniffed a few things.. then stopped again while everyone used a tree to mark. I went over to snap a few photos of his face and noticed (at least) his right eye was circling a bit. I hadn't seen this in a LONG time. His eye brows were fine, no twitching - but he definitely had the spins.  I let him stay still for a bit and he just lay down. I let him lie down for a

Max's right eye was vibrating

couple of minutes and then decided it was probably a better idea to pick him up and bring him home and get him his prednisone dose for the day (he was due in an hour and a half anyway).  He lay down in the car, got up, looked for water, and lay down. When we got home, he immediately jumped up and wanted to jump out of the car!  I didn't let him. His eye had stopped spinning, but he still got his dose of prednisone anyway and I let him rest. Any time the other dogs would bark at deer or other dogs in the neighborhood he'd jump up too and run to the door to see what was going on (hearing is definitely back!)

Max needed a little rest.

We can always second guess ourselves - maybe it was the car ride that got him dizzy, or he hasn't done too much quick movement in a while so that made him dizzy, or he pushed it trying to be the leader. I didn't really give him a lot of time to try and recover and "see what happens next" before I scooped him up and we came home.  Better safe than sorry.   We'll probably try again another day

Guess who went for a walk today!

Guess who went for a walk today!  You guessed it! MAX!  We went up to the woods and he walked a whole 1/2 a mile on the short trail!  It was a slow walk at first. He wanted to take in all the kids at the playground and the people playing volley ball. Actually I think that was extremely overwhelming for him.  He kept taking 2 steps and then stopped and tried to take it all in - kids laughing, squeeling, swinging on swings, sliding down slides, making sand castles, baby crying, bicyclists, people playing basket ball, and volley ball, and a goth wedding... (yup... all sorts of people dressed in black and red for the wedding coming by and saying hi to him on their way out).  Once we got past the playground, he was a pup on a mission... or gravity took over.. or a little of both and he was pulling me down the hill.  He LOVES to go all the way to the bottom of the hill and walk on the fishing dock and bark at the fish and things floating by.. but not today. He pooped, then got to the picnic shelter and decided it was time for a nap.  We hung out there for about 20 minutes and then started through the woods back to the car.  Not as many people, but lots of smells (his nose is working again), he spotted some birds and squirrels but opted not to go after them, smelled some plants too. I was trying to walk really slow so he would go slow, but Max would have none of that, however he'd stop every 20 ft or so. He was a bit wobbly - like he was drunk.   Maybe a little light-headed?  But once we got going in the woods, he wanted to keep going and didn't want to take the short cut to the parking lot. In fact when we got to the end of the trail he made a left and wanted to do it again.  At that point we ran into Sarah - a yellow Lab who came over to say hi so he had some time to rest while the people chatted.