Fourth Day Home

Great Danes are very loving dogs.  They bond very closely with their owners.  They make wonderful couch companions and will sit at the table with you for dinner (if you wanted).  They give big hugs and big kisses and lots of cuddles to show their love.  However, if there is one thing I have learned it's that this breed is stubborn.  Take Titan for example.  He only does things when he wants and good luck to anyone who tells him otherwise or tries to move him.  Normally I don't need to worry about this as he loves to do anything mom does, however, this trait is making his healing process very difficult.  Here is a photo of what I mean:

Today was a little different though.  Our stubborn Great Dane gave us some successes to be excited about.  First of all he finally ate something on his own and willingly.  Yay!  One of Titan's all time favourite treats is freeze dried beef liver.  Last year when Titan was sick we used this ground up over his food to get him to start eating again so I sent Mike off on another Titan errand.  Sure enough once presented with with the beef liver treat he finally took it from our hands and didn't spit it out.  The best part is, these are very easy to crush up into a powder and sprinkle over any food to get him to eat a proper meal.  Tonight I tried this trick over the pate I have been making (updated to 2.5 cups of Acana kibble, one egg, one teaspoon of coconut oil, 1 jar of beef or chicken baby food, and warm water mixed until moist) and again it seemed to do the trick. He ate and licked a bit from the top and I was able to get a bit more into him with a small amount of force for his night time pills.  Then when it was my dinner time I decided to make cheese stuffed ravioli in a hamburger sauce.  As I mentioned in an earlier post Titan loves cheese and hamburger.  So on a hunch I decided to offer him some and he took it!  Yay!  I was so relieved I offered him another pasta.  He took this one too then looked at me as if to say, "Well, where's my bowl"  So I brought over the last two in my bowl and held it out.  He took one look and dived right in!  Tomorrow we are going to try stewing beef and see how he takes to that.  It came recommended by my aunt who was feeding it to her sweet boy Finn, a Labradoodle, who needed a little loving help in the end with his meds.  Titan thought they were good friends and I know misses him at the cottage (as we all do).

(Titan watching Finn swim off into the sunset at the cottage)

After dinner and some rest (Great Danes must rest for an hour after eating to help prevent bloat) we hooked up the harness and tried to get Titan outside to pee again.  This time he was easier to get up and it took Mike less effort to assist him.  My hope is he is getting used to us putting on the front piece of the harness to signal we are going outside.  Once up he actually made it out to the porch again but this time a little faster and he was standing on his own!

Then to our surprise, Titan tried the ramp!  A little nervous at first but with dad's help and lots of encouragement he went down to the lawn.  The real excitement was next, we had a poop!  Any dog owner knows what a big deal this can be and there was a lot of cheering and praise.  I am sure the neighbours think we are nuts.  He even started to move along on 3 feet faster to check out his sniff spots in the yard (all the time dad right there to assist and make sure no weight was on the sore leg).  When we felt he had been outside long enough we directed Titan back towards the ramp but he now looked at us to say "I want to keep going and stay out".  There is that stubborn Dane thing coming into play again!   We kept up the encouragement and he finally moved forward to go back inside.  He needed a little push when we got to the ramp but he managed with dad's help againt and got back inside to his bed.  He still didn't pee, but I think now that he knows he can manage the ramp we can work on that tomorrow morning first thing.

Today has been full of success and I'm very positive tomorrow will only be better.

Titan's leg day 4: