TPLO Day 3

 

 

We're on day number three following Jedi's TPLO surgery and I feel like we are progressing very well. Jedi is pictured here with the new, larger blow up collar that we got yesterday. His neck is 15" and this one is sized for 20-27", I think. It's much better than the last one, but he's still able to bend around a bit more than I'd like. We're compromising, though. He gets to wear this one when I'm in the house because it takes enough effort for him to reach his back end that I notice it and can stop him. When I have to leave the house then I put the cone back on. We both slept a lot better last night and he definitely seems to prefer the comfort of the collar over the cone.

 

Therapy takes a good 30 minutes each time we do it, which is still averaging every four hours. I am making the most of it and multi-tasking when I can. In the above picture I'm using the light pad on his hip because he's been super tight there while doing his stretching exercises, I'm using the cold laser on the knee, and I'm icing the underside of the knee and his hock (where the swelling is).

Our routine is to come out of the crate, lay down (right side up), and then ice top & bottom of the knee while I use the laser on the swollen hock for 10 minutes. Then I remove the ice and switch to massage, which morphs into the PROM exercises. Then I finish with the above, using the laser for another 10 minutes on the knee.

This morning I gave Jedi a lickimat while I took the other dogs for their walk. I put a couple of mats in the freezer last night (combo of peanut butter, yogurt, and pumpkin) with the thought process being that if they were frozen they would last longer. Uh, nope. Jedi went at it with his teeth and was able to get it off in large chunks, so that didn't work as planned. It didn't keep him occupied for very long at all. I was watching him on my Wyze cam while I was out with Ren and while we were still on our first lap I was pretty uncomfortable about Jedi's behavior. He was upset, in the corner of the pen facing the door, and barking. He's not one to ever jump out of a pen, but I just didn't want to risk anything. I came back into the house and moved him into the crate. He was quiet and settled for the rest of our walk. I also left the view to the outside open, which I had blocked earlier thinking that would help. Guess not.

I taught an agility lesson at 11:00 a.m. Typically I lock all of the dogs in the bedroom, but I elected to instead put Kaiser into the crate next to Jedi to keep him company. I don't think it would be a good idea to put them in the xpen together, but this idea seemed to work well. They both stayed nice and quiet during my lesson. Since it was going so well, I left everyone where they were and took Ren outside to work him. Jedi is not generally a fan of being left out of the fun so I have been hesitant to do anything with Ren since bringing Jedi home, but we didn't have any problems and Jedi stayed quiet the whole time. Thank goodness Kaiser doesn't mind hanging out in crates, we'll use this a lot going forward.

I think that the swelling has gone down some today, but most notably the heat is leaving his leg. It's been quite warm to the touch since coming home, even following an icing session. Today it's feeling quite normal and cold after icing, so that's good. The hock is still a bit squishy, but it doesn't seem as bad as yesterday. I think the laser focused in that area is probably helping.

Jedi is gaining a lot more confidence in his leg and is also starting to come out of his post-surgery fog a bit more (despite still being on Gabapentin and Trazodone). He's becoming a bit more of a handful on the way outside and wanting to move around more when we're out there. This is only going to get progressively more difficult, I'm sure. I'm using a leather leash on him to discourage the biting/tugging behavior that he does on his fleece leash and I can tell that this upset him today when he wanted to tug.  lol  Sorry buddy, not for a while yet. That will be part of our physical therapy down the road.

The incision still looks good. I think it looks a little "angrier" in this photo today, but then I just realized that it's the difference between the main camera on my phone (what this is from) vs the front-facing camera (the selfi-mode that I've used for the other shots of the inside of the knee). I have started to wipe down the frozen packs of peas after use, though, figuring it's not a good thing for them to get dirty and be up against his wound.

Finally, here's our day 3 video. This is from our trip outside around 2:30 p.m. (Link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/d0rLfaDQppU )

TPLO Day 2

For the record, this particular blow-up collar lasted pretty much long enough to take a picture. As soon as I left him in it, Jedi proceeded to investigate his neuter, and quite easily I might add. I'd been warned that a "correctly-sized" blow up collar would not do the job. Oh well. Back in the box it went and my parents were able to take it back to Pet Supplies Plus for me this afternoon. I had them swing by Petco to buy a larger model, but I haven't had the chance to take it out of the box to try it yet. We'll see. He's really doing well in the plastic cone, but he does scrape and clang it against the xpen some while he's trying to get comfortable.

To backtrack quickly, Jedi seems to be healing quite well from his neuter. When Kaiser was done at age 3 1/2 there was a lot of swelling and discomfort. I remember holding him belly-up on the couch with a bag of peas on his boy bits. So far I'm not seeing any swelling there for Jedi. The fact that he gets a bag of peas between his legs to ice the bottom of his knee probably isn't hurting that situation any. And of course, the limited mobility, which is why I opted to do it now.

Jedi is doing well and resting comfortably. He seems to really enjoy our icing sessions, which average about every four hours and include massage, PROM, and about 10 minutes with the cold laser. I feel like there was a bit more swelling noticed today, and some of it is starting to pool around his hock joint (something I learned was common in one of the videos I found on YouTube). With the additional swelling, it's not surprising that he's been a little more resistant to fully extend his leg today.

The suture line is looking great. Let's hope it stays that way. I try to avoid touching it when we're doing our PROM exercises, but Jedi hasn't seemed sensitive to it.

We've had poop! Twice! We went out just after 3:00 a.m. and had success on that trip. I did go ahead and open a can of pumpkin with breakfast because I figure it can't hurt. We had another successful trip around 3:00 p.m., so things seem to be moving along just fine.

The chiropractor was here for his regular visit today, but we elected to give Jedi a bit more time to get stable on his feet before his next adjustment. I'll be making the trip to Gallatin in a couple of weeks instead. Hopefully we are closer to weight-bearing by then.

Sleeping on the air mattress in the living room isn't the most fun experience, but I still think it's the best for Jedi right now. Kizzy seemed to like it well enough!

Here's our video from day 2. The video yesterday and today were both taken following his afternoon dose of meds, so I do think that likely contributes to the additional use of the leg. When we went out around noon I'm not sure if he put it down at all. (Link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/ADGt8Oxkfqo )

TPLO Day 1

 

Time to use the blog for yet another purpose! It's been blessedly free of updates since Jedi's seizures started in January. Thankfully we have not experienced another seizure since starting on phenobarbital. Sadly 2021 has hit us with another blow as Jedi went in for TPLO surgery on 4/8/21. Today was his first day home and I'm going to use the blog to track his recovery so that I can better appreciate the day-to-day progress. My goal is to post incision pictures and video of his gait daily, to a point yet to be determined.

The story of how this came about.... On February 24 I ran Jedi through a UKI course in training (https://youtu.be/o8NxFaa0nL8). Later that evening, when he'd been napping after dinner, he got up from his bed and was holding up his right hind. On that occasion he persisted in favoring the leg into the next day. I put him on leash for several days and stopped training for a couple of weeks.

On Monday, March 8 he ran around like a loon on our morning walk, far more than usual. He'd been off leash restriction for some time and was not having any problems. Later that morning he rose from his nap favoring the leg again. This time he seemed to walk out of it. We were entered in an AKC trial that weekend so I put him back on leash again for a couple of days. He was free to run by the end of the week and was doing fine again, so I elected to go to the trial. I limited his runs to one trial per day, though (it was the double trial format), so as to not overdo it. On Saturday all was well, but on Sunday he was favoring the leg slightly when we got out of the van after returning home.

I really thought, by the way he was moving, that it was his hip or pelvis. I texted his chiropractor on Sunday and we were able to get an appointment for Tuesday, March 16. It was Dr. Vear who suggested that what I was describing sounded like a CCL injury, but he was not able to get motion when he attempted the drawer test on the knee. I came home and made an appointment with our vet, although we unfortunately had to wait two weeks until April 1 when the ortho specialist would be available. I rested Jedi until the Tuesday before the appointment, when I ran him through the NAC finals course to purposely try to "break him" before his appointment, since he'd been fine the whole time (https://youtu.be/ILVw2VWlWUY).

We went in last Thursday and knocked Jedi out for xrays. While he was still out, Dr. Wearing showed me the movement in the knee (much more obvious on an unconscious patient) and said that the xrays showed signs of inflammation, so we were definitely dealing with a CCL tear of some degree.

Surgery was scheduled for the first available time, which was one week out. I dropped Jedi off yesterday morning at 7:30 a.m.

Dr. Wearing called at 4:45 p.m. to update me that surgery had gone very well. Jedi's tear was right along the edge of the tibial plateau and blessedly his meniscus was still entirely intact. This should bode very well for his future performance after healing and rehabilitation. Often times people wait too long for surgery, or there is some traumatic incident, and the meniscus gets shredded. I was very happy that we moved forward quickly with surgery.

I picked Jedi up around 2:00 p.m. today after receiving our discharge instructions. I've been doing a lot of research online and have joined some helpful groups on Facebook, so thankfully I was already prepared with a plan. This is good, because they really didn't cover anything about therapy or rehab at all (I did get a handout prior to surgery).

I had to drop a prescription off for Trazodone on the way home, and they also sent me home with Deramaxx, Gabapentin, and Cephalexin to be given over the next two weeks. Unfortunately Dr. Wearing is out of the office during the standard two-week follow up appointment, so we will not be going back until week three. Jedi does not have any visible sutures or staples, though, so at least that is not a concern. I didn't expect that at all, as I have not seen pictures shared online of hidden suture lines. That's pretty neat, although we do still need to be very careful about not letting Jedi get at it. He's been doing really well in the plastic cone that he was sent home in, so I have left that on him for now. I do have an inflatable collar that I may try on him tomorrow to see if it allows him to reach the incision. It would be nice to transition him to that because he cannot reach his water bucket wearing the cone.

Things have been going well since we got home. Jedi drank a whole bucket of water when I first put him in the pen, so I knew we'd have to go out sooner rather than later (I cannot imagine this dog only going out the 4-5 times a day they recommend, he goes out practically hourly most days....). I gave him his afternoon pain meds and he took a nap while those kicked in. About 45 minutes later we went outside for another potty break, he got his Trazodone that my parents were able to pick up for me, and then we started our first session of icing and PROM exercises around 4:00 p.m. I went very slow and didn't want to push anything for the first time, but Jedi didn't have any objections.

I fed dinner a bit later than usual because Jedi was sleeping again. We ate a little after 6:00 p.m. Then we went outside for another potty trip, then back in for more icing and PROM. I pushed a little bit more this time and Jedi did have some slight resistance to straightening out the knee, so I again kept it slow and gentle. There is no resistance to bending it. The hock is also fine, as well as the hip. I included a 15 minute cold laser session (which we are blessedly borrowing from a friend) and followed up with one more session of icing. I am going to need to pick up some more frozen peas to make sure I always have a frozen set on hand. I have read that you cannot do too much icing right now, so we're going to go nuts with it.

I have pulled out the air mattress and plan to sleep in the living room until Jedi is out of the cone/donut. I can fit his crate in my bedroom, but I think it's easier on him to have the extra space of the xpen while wearing something on his head. We can move back into the bedroom in a couple of weeks, hopefully.

Here is our day 1 video. I do have a sling that I'm using to get him in and out of the house (yay for having a ramp off the front steps, too!), but I obviously have to remove it for him to go potty. (Link for mobile users, since embedded video doesn't seem to work:  https://youtu.be/wtQIMqfImCk )

With any luck we'll get poop eventually, although I imagine that will be a struggle for him right now. I'll remember to open a can of pumpkin to go with breakfast tomorrow. He had quite the appetite for dinner, so that was good! He got to eat dinner out of a regular bowl tonight. Once he's more stable I'll return him to his slow feeder to draw it out a bit more, and I have a few puzzle feeders on hand as well. My goal is to not let him gain weight during this process, as that can mess with how effective his seizure meds are. He had gotten up to 41 lbs, but I cut his food back over the last month and now he's at 38 lbs, so we have some wiggle room.

I plan to do one more icing and PROM session before bed tonight. And who knows, maybe again in the middle of the night since I probably won't sleep.

Onward we go, wish me luck.

Happy 5th Birthday Jedi!

 

I think where this blog is concerned, no news is good news! Or great news, really! Jedi has been doing fabulously well over these last several weeks. He has now gone over a month without another seizure since his diagnosis and starting pheno. There is nothing that would lead anyone to believe that there is anything wrong whatsoever.

We drove to Indianapolis last Saturday to attend one day of a USDAA trial. This was Jedi's first trial since his diagnosis, so I didn't know what to expect. I was definitely nervous about the traveling, as it's almost five hours each way. The trial schedule was such that we could drive up the morning of, play in a few classes, and drive home. I definitely wasn't ready to add a hotel stay into our routine yet.

Jedi rocked it! He was a little nuts in Master Standard for his first run, but we found our groove after that. He ended up winning Grand Prix (!!), winning Relay, and he had the fastest time in Steeplechase. He still managed third place even with a call on the a-frame.

I supplemented Jedi with honey between runs to avoid any sort of blood sugar crash (if there is such a thing to worry about, still just covering my bases). There were no issues with energy levels at the trial, but I would say Jedi definitely seemed pretty tired by the time we got home around 7:00 p.m. that night. He was completely recovered by the following day, but I did wonder how that would bode for our three days of USDAA agility this weekend -- his birthday weekend!

Friday was team day. I didn't enter Jedi in team at this trial because of everything that's been going on and the uncertainty of everything when it was time to put teams together. Thankfully they were also offering Biathlon and one round of Master Snooker as well, so Jedi got to play in those classes. We had one small bobble in B.Standard (well, it was still an E) but came back to nail B.Jumpers with a clean run. I had a great plan in Snooker, but it didn't work out. Ha!

I didn't feel like Jedi was nearly as tired Friday night as he was following the trial day last weekend, so that's great! He had four runs yesterday (Standard, Gamblersx2, and Grand Prix) and while unfortunately we didn't Q in any of them, he was still running great and had no issues with recovery.

Today the trial ended up being canceled due to icy road conditions, so we stayed home and threw a birthday party! Thankfully I picked up his cake on the way home yesterday, so we still got to have a proper celebration. Happy Birthday Jedi! Hopefully we get to do more fun stuff this year!

One Week Update

Jedi has made it through a full week without a seizure! He is responding well to the phenobarbital. The chiropractor was here on Saturday and remarked that Jedi didn't look or act like a dog on pheno, which was very encouraging. I was warned to be prepared for a change, though, and we definitely have experienced some side effects.

Monday was Jedi's hardest day, where I noticed some ataxia and general lack of coordination. He also had one episode where he'd been in a very deep sleep on the couch, and when he woke up it seemed like his hind legs were stuck in a constricted position. When he was able to get himself up and off the couch it didn't seem like his back legs were working very well and he was very unstable, but he did walk out of it.

Every day since then has been an improvement. I have been making a point to do a bit of agility with him daily, first at low heights and then short sessions at 22", to keep his mind and body active. He also still has free reign on our walks, where he continues to run around like a loon. Yesterday we tried (6) weaves and the a-frame for the first time. It seemed like he had to think very, very hard to do the weaves and they weren't the most coordinated, but he was able to do them. His a-frame was an awkward combination of his running performance and his old stopped behavior, but he was doing it safely. With this in mind, I decided to let him play when we went to a friend's house this afternoon to play on a USDAA@home Combined Relay course.

Everything went great! I'm seeing improvements every day, as his weaves had shown vast improvement already. It was helpful that we were running with a 16" dog, so any shared jumps were set to the lower height, but Jedi managed the 22" jumps as well. He even had a fairly decent a-frame! More than anything, though, he was just so happy to play.

As a general update, here's our current med routine: Before we start our morning walk I give Jedi a dose of CBD oil and a spoonful of honey. Breakfast follows our walk, usually around 8:00 a.m. Jedi's first dose of phenobarbital is given at 9:00 a.m. Mid-afternoon, especially if we've worked, I give him another spoonful of honey. I usually give him his second dose of CBD before dinner, which is between 5:00 and 6:00. I give his second dose of pheno at 9:00 p.m. in canned food. Everyone gets a treat before bedtime.

Day 2 (Friday, January 8, 2021) First day of meds

4:20 a.m. – Woke up in bed, Jedi appeared to be repositioning himself to higher on the bed. I reached out to pet him and he was responsive/happy, but almost immediately went into a seizure. Length of seizure was around 20-30 seconds again, including frothing and losing his bladder. We laid there for 2-3 minutes before he wanted to get up. He left the bed and ran into the living room. He was again acting like he didn’t want to come near me. I got him to go out the front door, where he continued to act disoriented for another minute or so. He approaches the other dogs like he doesn’t know them. In total the post-ictal phase was around 5-6 minutes this time. It’s a bit early for breakfast, but Jedi is acting like he’s starving. It’s a bit early for breakfast, so I gave him a spoonful of peanut butter. Given the timing of episodes thus far, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s triggered by blood sugar? He got a few small treats before bed at 11:00 p.m., following his usual dinner at 5:30 p.m.

Breakfast was given at 5:30 a.m.

Called the vet when they opened and it was decided to put Jedi on medication due to having three seizure events in less than 24 hours.

First dose of phenobarbital was given at 10:50 a.m. 32.4 mg x 1.5 tablets. Also gave ½ dropper of CBD oil (ISOHEMP 300mg).
 

Day 1 of Our New Journey

I'm resurrecting Jedi's blog, but for an unfortunate reason. Jedi had three seizures in <24 hours starting on January 7, 2021. We are now starting a new journey of living a happy and full life with epilepsy. I was advised to start keeping a seizure journal. I started out in a Word doc, so I'm going to transition what I have there to the blog, and then keep the updates here going forward so that it's easier to access from anywhere.

 Thursday, January 7, 2021

Got up @ 7:00, did our usual walk outside (30 degrees). Back in the house @ 7:45. I took a shower and Jedi hung out in the bedroom/closet. Was preparing breakfast around 8:15. Jedi was next to me like usual and I sensed something strange, but thought he was just being snarky towards Kaiser again. I looked down at him and saw that he was hunched over with his head down. Moments later he fell onto his side and his entire body went rigid. Shortly thereafter he began to convulse. This episode lasted 20-30 seconds and included frothing at the mouth and emptying his bladder. When the convulsions stopped it took a couple of minutes for Jedi to become responsive. He was unable to get up because his rear end was not working. When he was able to get up he was walking sideways and having a hard time staying on his feet. He initially went to the patio door, seeming to try to get away from me, and when I tried to call him to the front door he ran to the bedroom to get away from me. Got him outside and he ran to the corner, then back to the front door where he pressed himself against the door and seemed very scared by my presence. After about 30 seconds or so there was a switch flipped behind his eyes and he recognized me again. Returned to normal after that, appetite was normal at breakfast.

5:00 p.m. – Was sitting on the couch with the recliner up. Jedi was laying under the recliner. I heard some thumping and at first thought he was scratching himself, but when I peeked under the recliner I could see he was seizing again. I pulled him out from under the chair. He again frothed at the mouth and lost control of his bladder. This episode seemed a little shorter than the last, maybe 15 seconds? When he stopped convulsing, this time I did not urge him to get up at all and instead just stroked him for about a minute until he stopped bulging his eyes out like he was scared. He again struggled at first to get to his feet, but was much steadier than following the episode this morning. Took him outside again, but he just wanted to come in and get dinner. As for activity leading into this event, we haven’t done anything since we returned from the vet at 3:30 this afternoon. Appetite was normal, ate dinner eagerly.

Jedi's First Snowfall

Well look at that, it's been a month since I last posted to Jedi's blog. What a crazy, topsy-turvy month it has been. I didn't even post for Jedi's 9-month birthday, that's how nuts things have been (it got posted on Facebook at least). To update Jedi's stats, he got measured by an AKC VMO at a trial a couple weeks back and she pegged him at 19.5". I've been putting him at 20" or just a smidge under, but she worked on getting him to relax and stop standing on his toes and was able to get a lower measurement. I'm pretty sure his final measurement will be over 20" but under 21", so we're good. I walked Jedi up to the vet's office yesterday to go pick up a refill of one of Luke's prescriptions and he was 34.5 lbs. He's got good bone to him and a ton of muscle.

My last blog post was about our whirlwind trip to Tennessee. Our lives have been a bit upturned since then because -- Surprise! -- I put in an offer on my friend's place. Yes, in Tennessee. This meant that I needed to get my house on the market and sold, a thought that literally had not crossed my mind until maybe a week before that trip, so there was a lot of work to do. As you can imagine in a house with five dogs, there was a lot of cleaning to do. Lots of cleaning... And painting. And floor scrubbing. Then the carpets got cleaned and that was the end of using our living room. I put up x-pens to keep the dogs off the carpet, but I'm not going in there, either, because I would feel guilty leaving the dogs in the kitchen. So I sit in the kitchen with them.

We were blessed with a very moderate November, which is good because the dogs spent a lot of time locked outside. Every time I had a showing they would have to spend a bit of time outside while I finished up the last bits of getting the house ready, and then we'd all pack up and go hang out up at my parent's house. Let me tell you, Jedi has thought that part of all of this is pretty awesome. I think he's starting to view my parent's house as Disney World. Not only does he get to play with their dogs, but it is the house of tennis balls. Tennis balls everywhere! Jedi's eyes pretty much bug out of his head the moment we arrive and he goes nonstop until we leave. The plus side is that this typically results in him being pretty quiet when we get home.

I accepted an offer on the house only a week after it was listed. The home inspection is tomorrow and I have elected to continue our life behind bars until we are past that point. I am so looking forward to having our couch back and I'm sure the dogs are looking forward to getting off the hard kitchen floor. We have been spending quite a bit of time in the bedroom as well. This works out well with Jedi because he is pretty much the best bed dog ever and will sack out for hours in there. Sometimes he gets bored and drops things on me then offers tricks to get me to throw them back to him. Obviously this is too cute to ignore, so he always wins. His sit pretty is improving a lot through these games.

Not surprisingly, we haven't really been doing a lot of training during all of this madness. I have continued to work on Jedi's running dog walk and he has progressed up to running the plank propped up on the 12" table. I was able to remove the wings as guides to keep him down the middle, but if my throw is terrible he will still go off the side of the plank. Striding-wise, I think Jedi is doing great. He does best if I set him well off from the table to start so that he can get a running go at it. I feel this hopefully bodes well to his performance on the full obstacle. One bonus to moving to Tennessee is that I'll be buying a new dog walk and can actually work with Jedi this winter! I don't have any more dog walk videos to share, but I did video our training session the other day where we did a Happy Hurdle Day drill. Jedi hadn't done any agility stuff for some time before this, but he didn't forget anything.

We finally got snow here in Wisconsin. Considering we're now into December I suppose I don't have too much to complain about. I didn't figure I would be lucky enough to get through the move without it. Besides that, it was Jedi's first snow, so that made it more fun. He was pretty jazzed this morning, because what is not to love about wet stuff falling from the sky and creating piles that you can play with? He was pretty insistent that I come out to join him, so I finally relented and all of the frisbee-playing dogs got to play frisbee. This is pretty much the only game you can play in snow. It quickly became evident that Jedi did not understand the concept of snow covering objects, as it took next to nothing for him to lose his disc and I pretty much had to pick it up and show it to him every time he lost it. I think there was one time at the end when the light bulb must have gone on because he finally pounced on the disc in glee after finding it on his own.

As much as I am not a fan of snow, I do enjoy having the opportunity to go out on an untouched trail with no footprints before our own. I think this stems from my riding days and the feeling of getting to be the first to ride in a freshly-groomed arena. Maybe I just like to see where we've been. At any rate, I loaded up the dogs and we went to a section of the trail out in the middle of nowhere to help guarantee solitude (who knows if other people would have the same idea). Jedi loves absolutely everything about snow and finds no apparent downside to its existence. He had the time of his life running around on the trail during our hike. Well bud, in the future maybe you'll be lucky enough to have snow when we come home to visit.  ;o)

Assuming all goes as planned, we should close here at the end of the month and be in Tennessee at the beginning of January. Fingers crossed for a smooth ride.

Jedi's Grand Tennessee Adventure

Until recently, Jedi's longest road trip was when he came home from his breeder's house in Indianapolis. I think that trip took us between 8 and 9 hours, but he was wee and I'm sure has no real recollection of the day his life to that point went topsy-turvy. There have certainly been plenty of opportunities for Jedi to learn the art of traveling, though, with our many 2-3 hour trips to trials. This past weekend he proved what an absolute rock star he is by being a trooper and riding along for a whirlwind down-and-back trip to Tennessee. We left home at 6:30 a.m. on Friday and we got home at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. Each trip took around 13 hours. That is a long time for a puppy to be good in the car, and Jedi did awesome.

We left bright and early Friday morning. Jedi was the only dog that I elected to take on this trip and the rest stayed home to hang out with my mom. I almost took Kizzy along as well but when I learned that the dogs would be staying at my house I figured my mom could handle her. I wasn't going to subject my mom to the crazy puppy, though, so he came along. My dad was driving his car, so this was Jedi's first experience riding outside of a crate in a vehicle. It occurred to me that it may have been his first time in any vehicle other than my van, as he wasn't sure how to get in the back seat at first. He figured it out quickly enough. It was dark when we left and Jedi slept for a while, but when the sun came up he seemed to enjoy taking in the world going by.

We made several stops on the way down, but they were all pretty fast and not much more than potty breaks. I am so thankful for Jedi's great ability to go to the bathroom literally anywhere and on a 6' leash, as I never had to worry about getting back on the road without having him relieve himself. He gained a fan club in Illinois when we met a couple who was absolutely enamored with him and had seen agility at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge, so they were excited to meet someone who does that. Our drive was smooth sailing until we hit Nashville. I worried when we got stuck in traffic that Jedi would reach his limit and need to get out, but it was getting dark by then and he slept through it.

We arrived to my friend's house in Cookeville around 7:45 p.m. After spending all day in the car, Jedi appreciated the chance to stretch his legs and get in some running time as he was introduced to Colleen's dogs. Colleen has 6 border collies of her own, so Jedi fit right in! Jedi hit it off with Jet right away and they had lots of fun running and playing behind the house before we went inside. In the house Jedi got to know the other dogs better and did well with everyone, but he was high as a kite for a while and got a bit hump-happy, which I kept on top of and made sure to redirect him quickly. Colleen has two senior dogs that we had to be careful around since Jedi doesn't look where he's going, but Jedi really had a soft spot for Cody and tried to lick him like he does with Luke. We just had issues with Colleen's youngest (intact male) who isn't comfortable having strange dogs in his home, so we kept the two of them separated for the whole weekend. By the end we were able to have them together with one in a crate, so that was progress. Jedi also slept in his crate at night to make sure he didn't bother any of the resident dogs.

On Saturday Jedi had a jam-packed fun-filled day. We took Jedi and Jet out in the morning for a tour of the property. Jedi had loads of fun exploring, but as soon as we reached the creek that was all he cared about. It wasn't exactly warm that morning, but he didn't care. Much of the creek is wading depth, but there are spots with larger pools that allow for swimming. Jedi found them! I didn't even have a toy with me, he just took off and went swimming. I was able to convince him to come out when we went back to the house, but he would have happily stayed there all day. Jedi ran around a bit with the other dogs to dry off some, and then got to take a nap in his crate while the humans went on a driving tour of the area.

When we got back from lunch, Colleen and I packed up Jedi and Rain and went to one of the local parks not too far away. Our mission was to hike down to see a waterfall, which I thought sounded pretty cool. I stuck Jedi's head halter on him for a little more control, which I ended up being very thankful for because the trail was pretty rugged and I needed him to not plow ahead. There were also quite a few people (and dogs!), so he couldn't be off leash. He did really well navigating the crazy terrain as we climbed down the hill to the riverbed. It was hard on Jedi when we got to the bottom and he wasn't allowed to go straight into the river. He did slip out of his halter once and went out to have some fun, but after I tightened it that didn't happen again. When it was time to go back up the trail I switched over to Jedi's harness and let him haul my butt up the hill.

When we got back to the house we took Jedi, Rain, and Rose down to the creek for some swim time. I didn't have any water toys in Jedi's bag, so I just grabbed one of his balls on a rope so he'd have something to go after. That didn't work out so well because, FYI, things with holes don't float well. Jedi got to fetch it five or six times before it stopped staying on the top of the water, so I took it away before we lost it and made Jedi just play with the girls. After swimming we took them into the big fenced field and let them run. Jedi was in heaven having so much room to stretch out and having dogs that ran his speed. I got some of it on video but they'd been going for a while already at that point! Jedi and Rose had lots of fun together (Rain tolerated the annoying puppy).

After having such an exciting and fun-filled day, Jedi was pretty tired. He finally was able to relax and chill inside the house with all of his new buddies. Because he was just sleeping anyhow, I figured he could go hang in his crate for a bit to let Blue be out and about. This was fine until Jedi just stood up and, unannounced, just started peeing out all of the creek water he'd consumed earlier. That's the second time this has happened (the first being on the way home from dock diving). I wish he'd indicate that he needs to go out or something, but I think it only happens when he's really tired and might half be doing it in his sleep or something.

Sunday brought a time change, which we took advantage of to get on the road a bit earlier. We were able to leave a little before 6:00. I think all of Saturday's fun carried over and Jedi slept pretty hard on the way home. The only time he was restless was after I gave him a chewie and I think he was thirsty. At one of our stops in Indiana there was a big grassy area, so I spent a little time throwing a ball for Jedi while my dad gassed up the car. After that he was pretty much out for the rest of the trip home. We pushed a little harder and probably made one fewer stop on the way home, but Jedi didn't have any problem with it. We got home around 7:00 p.m. and Jedi was happy to see all of the other dogs.

Will we be making any more trips down to Tennessee? Time will tell!