Tom went back to see Julia last week and we had a long session of treatment and an even longer session discussing the problem, she thinks that he could have hurt his back a while ago and has compensated by using his front end more than his back end as he seems to have lost a lot of his muscle on his back legs and lower back but is a bit like a body builder at the front. I have to admit that although I’ve changed his collar because his other one had become too small I hadn’t thought much of it other than that he was maturing.

At the moment the plan is to try and kick start the muscles on his back legs into working properly by getting him to pace out rather than scampering, I’m doing this by slowing down my pace when he’s on the lead and making him trot and when we are in the woods I’m putting him on the lead and getting him to step over small sticks and logs rather than jumping them. I’ve also got a balance cushion and every other day he’s standing on it with his back legs for a minute and then his front legs, while he’s standing square I have to nudge him slightly off balance so he has to use his muscles to stand square again.

After Christmas I’m going to try and do some swimming with him to hopefully get his muscles even stronger which will hopefully prevent his patellas from popping so much.

I’ve run Shy again on Tom’s Thursday session and have really enjoyed working with her and I think I got my contacts timing right last week plus I remembered to say OK instead of Go.

Poor Leah has gone down with the horrible fluey bug going round so no training tonight which is lucky as poor Dad has had to go into hospital to have a blood transfusion as he’s so anaemic due to having had a really bad bout of colitis. Hopefully he will be out tomorrow or Saturday and until he does Suzi is staying at my place and has taken over the big dog bed so Dudley has had to sleep on the back of my chair.