Happy doggy, happy family

 After over a month of "bed rest," Duke got cleared by the doctor to add a bit of walking back into his routine again. Duke has been cooped up at home between November 22 - January 2, 2020, with the exceptions of visits to the vet office (3 times) and daily potty business in the backyard. On January 2, 2020, poor doggy finally got to walk on his four paws. It had been raining a lot so the ground was wet, but that didn't stop him from moving to our neighbor's doorsteps and sniffing at areas he hasn't been able to for over a month! 

It was so nice to see him walking outside again - even though this was just in our neighborhood. We literally walked down the street of where our house sits, up to a stop sign, and back to the house. This took less than 5 minutes total - which is what the doctor recommended to start with.

Looking back, even though he had been prescribed with "bed rest," he was still a handful trying to break away from the pen we had for him for when we were away for, say, 1 hour to do grocery etc.

For example, one day we came home to this scene.....

Yep, he knocked it over, with himself inside it. The strength of this doggy whilst on recovery from a spinal injury! Very glad he was fine. Also very glad this happened toward the end of the recovery. The first 3-4 weeks of the recovery pretty much resulted him staying in our computer room 70% of the time he was home. We slept on the floor in the computer room with him from November 22 to December 31. Duke stayed in his crate in the computer room for only 1 night, and then he stayed on the sleep bag (on top of a mattress) for the remainder period of the "bed rest." For over 5 weeks, we slept in the computer room.

Anyhow, his play pen has finally retired. The top zipper of this "play pen" broke after the 2nd, or 3rd time of him knocking it over. So we trashed it after the following picture was taken.We bought this pen around 4.5 years ago for him. He was a 2 months old puppy at the time and used it for about a little while before we bought a gate to confine him in a bigger area for when we went to work/school. We used this play pen and his old crate to crate train him back in the day and both have worked out pretty well. Bye-bye Duke's-pen!

Look at this crazy poopy!

It's been nearly 3 months since that dreadful morning. He's doing so much better than how he was on that scary Friday. He's no longer on a bed rest. He is not on any medication and eats/digests fine. He gets outside for a walk everyday when weather permits. He jumps and runs (even when we tell him to slow down/stop!) but he's happy, and that makes all of us happy 😃

Here's a short clip of how fully recovered he is as of yesterday Feb 19, 2020. I had just come home and Duke, of course, was soooo excited to see me back haha.