Sunset

[summer_jackel]

Going beautiful places with my dogs is and I suspect always will be one of my favorite things. I got a lot of happy feedback regarding dogs at the beach pics at Furcon, so here are some from yesterday, a beautiful, quiet sunset on an empty beach.

Pryderi's hips/low back are giving him a lot of trouble, and he is about as bad as Fenris was about 6 months ago. It's painful to watch him age, and I am so very scared of losing him, especially now. Don't even want to imagine being without Pryde. Glucosomine and chondoriatin helps, and at least it isn't dysplasia, but his arthritis and loss of motion in the hips and spine are inevetable with age. He's 12, far younger than I expected this to happen (Fen was 14). But he is a very big dog, and this seems to hit them shockingly fast.

I am trying to cherish every moment I have with him. This trip to the tidepools was the first when he was not at my heels almost the entire time; he stayed on the shore watching me, only coming out into the pools in areas where the rock was particularly flat and easy to get over. I'm glad that he knows he could hurt himself and isn't taking risks. But then, this is the dog who has been backpacking with me regularly for the last 11 years---he knows his limits and his body, and he was always so good at knowing exactly how far he should go on a mountain face or slippery rock.

He seemed content and relaxed on the shore, though. Coba, interestingly enough, has taken the role of being glued to my heel at the tidepools. Maybe Pryde is glad to see somedog keeping an eye on my reckless ass as I attempt to get as close to the waves as I can...









The light made it hard to take decent pics, but the ones that did come out are pretty.


Jez doing her thing, rolling around in the sand.


Uff. Sand. Feels so good. Rotting kelp is also just the fragrance I was looking for in my fur to counteract that tutti frutti smelling stuff Jackel keeps washing us with...





Itty bitty sea stars!!!!! awwwwwww!




Lovely tidepool. The orange ochre stars are so dramatic against the dark rock; they make for some really nice pictures.



My noble Pryderi.


This one is sadly blurry but I love it enough to post it anyway.



Coba has a dash of nobility in there...


Usually, though, he's all PuppyPuppyPuppy OMGeelgrass LetMeRollInTheEelgrass yes. (I know it's blurry. Taking clear photos in low light of something that is constantly in motion is, I fear, somewhat beyonnd me...)


Sunset.

Comments

[cphoenix.livejournal.com]

The clearest vision of nobility I ever saw was a dog with hip pain. It was obviously in constant pain, and just as obviously making a constant, and constantly successful, effort to be a good citizen despite the discomfort. I've never seen anyone, human or canine, so self-controlled. It was simply determined not to let its pain make it snarl, or whine, or snap, or ...

I didn't even get the feeling that it was distressed, as in fighting stress. It was simply fighting pain. And winning.

Here's hoping for many more happy times with Pryde.

[ladyringo.livejournal.com]

Have you talked to your vet about NSAIDs for Pryde's arthritis? Glucosamine helps a little, but eventually we all need to take some antiinflammatories. It might help make him more comfortable.

<3

[kynekh-amagire.livejournal.com]

Your dogs are so photogenic. So are your tidepools. I love that Coba-in-the-eelgrass picture, blurriness and all. The tongue!

Luck only likes the beach when there are Frisbees involved; he's never forgotten his introduction to the Pacific Ocean, or that it tried to murder him (read as: get his pasterns wet). I've had gung-ho waterdogs my whole life; a dog who thinks that maybe allowing the surf to wash his toes constitutes a bracing swim is still a strange and novel thing to me, even after five years. (Luck turns seven sometime this year. It's weird to think of him as middle-aged; I know nothing about his breeding or his parents, but I've known plenty of BCs to make it to their spry and zippy late teens. Here's hoping.)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Great pics! Yay for dog pics!
For low-light shots, use the flash as a fill and that will make the images pop (and freeze them). See if you can find a compact flash that isn't a pain to leave on the camera expressly for this purpose.

How much glucosomine are you you giving Pryde now? Can you up the dosage? A little MSM regularly also can't hurt (for recovery after high-activity). And I'm guessing you already know about buffered aspirin. Frieda was on a cox-2 Deramaxx, not Rimadyl) inhibitor for a while, but they can't be taken along with Eldypryl, so I went back to aspirin because Cox-2 drugs don't mix well with the Eldypryl and I liked the increased cognitive effects of the Eldypryl more than the effectiveness of the Deramaxx.