Swimming and knickers

We visited the family in Southampton at the weekend, and for the first time since Christmas, Jazz went swimming in the Doggypaddle pool. As he always has in the past, he made a beeline for the door to the pool building as soon as he was let out of the door that gives access to it, so he clearly hadn't lost his enthusiasm for it.

As he hasn't swum for a while, and, of course, he hasn't been well, Lynn suggested that he should wear a buoyancy jacket this time. We also restricted him to a total of 15 swimming minutes (he normally does 30), and made him take some rests out of the pool too, rather than swimming almost non-stop as he usually does. His back legs were a bit wobbly on occasion when he got out, but nothing too serious. Lynn suggested that it looked more like a CDRM kind of wobble than his usual getting tired stumbles, but I'll worry about that if and when it really becomes a problem. (CDRM is a degenerative disease of the hind limbs associated with older German Shepherds. This would fit with his increasing slight reluctance to jump into the car these days - but then that could also be down to feeling reluctant to stretch because of the nappy straps too.) More importantly, he was clearly enjoying himself as much as ever.

To allow Andy and I to go out for the day on Monday, Jazz stayed there with mum and dad overnight, making the most of having free access to a garden. He spent most of the day lying just outside the back door, just coming into the kitchen once in a while to make sure mum was still there.

As he made it through the night with the benefit of a whole nappy - running the full length of his tummy (rather than the half-nappies that fit better during the day), we've now decided to give up sleeping downstairs with him, and so far that's been fine.

Last week I ordered some doggy knickers, aka Simple Solution Diaper Garments, from PetPlanet. These are normally used with bitches in season to protect the house from blood. As suggested, for a male dog I ordered the next larger size, but they were too loose to hold anything in place, and in any case were more fiddly to fit than the toweling strips and elastic straps we're currently using. They also don't really reach far enough forward to hold a decent sized bit of nappy in place anyway, so I'm afraid they've gone back to where they came from.