Carol (Sunnynook Member)
Like us, sometimes animal injuries are also a mystery as to why they happen. For us it was the case of our dog JJ and his torn Achilles’ tendon in May this year. After $7,000 of surgery and his Elizabethan Collar to wear to prevent him chewing through the splint and later his brace/moon boot, which came all the way from Sweden costing $600, and then $2,500 to fit.
As we left for one of his thrice weekly appointments his collar was nowhere to be seen.
On arrival they said if we couldn’t find it (and it must never betaken off) we would have purchase another one.
At that I decided to swing by Sunnynook remembering Mike had taken him the night before to Countdown with him. So I asked at Countdown, feeling a bit stupid by the blank looks, I then walked around the rugby rooms and edge of the pitch. How is this related to FLexercise you ask.
Well, I was the teacher who started the Sunnynook class at the Hall in the nineties and so I thought I’d pop in and see Bronwyn who is still the hall co-ordinator there.
I was only part thru my sentence of “This is very left field but we’ve lost our dogs collar”. Bronwyn interrupted and said “Oh we were driving up Sunnynook Rd last night and this thing was bouncing down the road towards us. We thought it was a lampshade and had better grab it before it caused an accident. We put it in some bushes, you’d never find it, so I’ll walk up there with you now..”.
Knowing JJ usually rests his head on the bottom of the window, we can only assume he put his head all the way out and when pulling his head back in the collar came off.
Currently he’s still wearing it, poor thing, doorways, and stairs are a challenge as you can imagine and he has to have a little plastic boot put on when he goes outside. We’ve lost a few of those as well, stories for another time. He is the most patient, loveable dog, named Joyful Jimmy by the Silverdale shelter where we got him, hence JJ. We have pet insurance but they only gave us $4,000. He’s 6 yrs old and most of our dogs have lived until 17-18yrs old, so he’s worth it, just like Jane Fonda.
Thankfully it was my connection with FLexercise that brought me to Bronwyn and reunited JJ with his collar.