The Story of BB the Great Dane

I did a ‘touch footie’, did ya see? BB, 21 wks old

Even without doing the “touch footie” game or his PT yesterday (what a crazy day), BB has started putting small amounts of weight on his foot! Mostly he lets the tip of his foot rub the ground, but from time to time he’s using it to balance again. We really need to work on it alot today, since yesterday was lacking. I’ll take every victory we can get.

BB’s starting to walk on shiney floors again, with lots of encouragement and rewards. Every step he takes, he gets a “that’s it, good boy, you can do it”, sometimes with a treat. He’s scared to fall, I think. But we keep working on this too. Oh, little boy, ya gotta walk!

Today is Friday and that means Emily is coming tonight through the weekend. She’s a sweet little girl, my neice, 2 years old, and she totally freaks BB out. If you’ve been following BB’s story, you’ll know he’s had several frightening encounters with her while she was unsupervised by her father. Last weekend, BB bit her. I really hope this weekend is different, and she will be taken somewhere else when BB’s becoming reactive to her. I’ve come to hate weekends.

Yesterday Mom was gone to town, longer than expected. I sat with BB in the living room where his expen is, and Kenai pined for his grammy in the kitchen most of the time. But the Brother’s Grin did get a little more time together, since they both had to eat and go out, and I was the only one home. They are so funny, the goofballs!

  I want some too, ya big lug!

After this pic was taken, the pool guys showed up to open and drain the pool so it can be sandblasted, steps poured, and painted. BB being the timid tot he is, every time they walked by, he barked and carried on. He was so wound up, he had Kenai charging about looking for the lion pride about to kill us all…Boys!

Finally I took BB outside, and let him smell all the men’s equipment and look inside their van. He wouldn’t let the men near him, but it seemed to calm him down some. And in the middle of it all, a friend came over. Told ya it was a crazy day.

Mom had just walked through the door and set her stuff down when the wild and crazy guy went and swallowed a bully stick whole…it was 8″ long! So after a fuzz of phone calls, we fed him the bizarre supper the vet recommended: vaseline sandwich. Yep, we smeared petroleum jelly on a peice of bread, with a light coating of bacon grease to get him to actually eat it, and topped it off with another peice of bread.

About 4 hours later he barfed it all up.

At least we know what to do if the boys swallow a bully stick: give ‘em a lube job. I never in a thousand years expected BB to do that. If anyone would, I figured it would be Kenai, the rockmonster. Kenai eats all kinds of garbage, but BB just chews, he doesn’t inhale. Ahhg!

Hopefully today we’ll get his PT and touch footie practice done. It’s not something that can be put off. If I wind up going to get another bag of pup food in the heat of the day, so be it. Today is a new day, and maybe it will go a little smoother. Our people whispering wumps needs his TLC. Maybe we’ll even take him to the puppy store for a little outing. He’d like that.