Hurtin’ Puppy on a morning walk. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has inquired about Raven’s situation in the past couple of days. She’s eating, drinking, and peeing, her attitude is practically back to normal, and she’s still in a lot of pain. This morning she returned to the vet for a successful enema followed by a laxative. He said, “I’m not surprised. I know there are more seeds in there. I couldn’t cut her intestine every few inches. I got what I could, and the rest is moving through.”

He likened it to when the irrigation water is turned on in the spring. All the debris that’s accumulated in the ditches gets washed down til it forms an obstruction. “In the ditch you can just go scoop it out. Then more comes down and you scoop it out again. With intestines, well…” He smiles and shrugs, “You can’t do that.”

All other signs being good, he sent her home with the prescription to take her for a fifteen minute walk every hour for the rest of the afternoon. We’ve done two, one up the driveway and one through the woods. Stellar is delighted with all this going out, and runs loose happily exploring. He is the one dog I’ve ever had that I know I can call off the deer. This morning we flushed half a dozen from the woods along the driveway and he just stood and watched them bounce across the drive and over the fence. Raven, feeling better, would have been after them. As it was she watched with interest, another good sign.

Walking through the woods in almost a foot of snow was more exhausting for me than I thought it would be. I started out on the cross-country trail, and one boot or another kept slipping off the side of the ski tracks. Not to mention wrecking the track. So we struck off into the trees, aiming for more shallow snow, but still I wish I’d had on snowshoes. The next walk, in about half an hour, I’ll try with skis on, and see how we both do; if she doesn’t tangle with the skis and I don’t tangle with the leash I’ll call it good. Stellar, I know, will be thrilled.

That she had no fever this morning, and is engaged and responsive to everything, pleased Doc. “It’s going well,” he reassured me as we left. “We’re on the road.”