A little update for those of you who have followed the story of our Jasper, who we adopted from Oldies Club after “failing” as foster parents rather quickly
As some of you know, Jasper had a couple of strokes/episodes, one just before Christmas and one back in March. It was a rather stressful experience for him (and us) but he’s a strong minded chap and we very much wanted to give him the chance to recover. Thankfully he started to improve from each episode, very quickly, although it took a while each time for him to seem back to normal. Along with vet advice and good food, he had Reiki and homeopathic Arnica.
With the second episode, he was reluctant to eat, which was worrying as he doesn’t carry excess weight and he generally LOVES his food. We tried various things but it was when I grabbed a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce from the cupboard that he regained his appetite, so I added some mackerel to each meal for the next few weeks to ensure he was eating. He rather liked that and invented a little mackerel song which he would start barking singing, when the mackerel appeared
I’ve been cautious about the amount of exercise he’s been having as I didn’t want him to over do it. He’s had a heart murmur since before we adopted him and he seemed to slow down a bit following these episodes, but we have been enjoying gentle walks around the village – and he does love to sniff everything, so this has worked well.
We took him to see our Holistic Vet for a check-up this week and we are going to try him on a few additional supplements to boost his health too. After the visit we treated him and one of our other dogs to a little walk in the woods – lovely sunny day, but plenty of shade. He had a wonderful time and it made my heart soar to see him trotting around happily. I know a few months back I didn’t know if we’d ever see him doing that again. We’re very grateful to Nick and to our conventional vets at Garston for helping us with our wonderful dogs.
Smiley, happy Jasper
Walking alongside me in the hope of a treat I suspect!
Jasper really is such a sweet, special boy. He’s been with us about 16 months now and fitted in perfectly from the start. We may have taken him in as an emergency foster but I shall always believe he was absolutely meant to come to usFor anyone who remembers the early hug photo of him and me in the snow, just days after he arrived, here’s an updated version
Love you Jasper ♥
And to anyone thinking of getting a dog, don’t forget the wonderful older dogs. So many in rescue and there are older dogs to suit all sorts of people/families and lifestyles. Take a look at Oldies Club to see some of them.
The rescue runs socialisation classes, which a new adopter would be welcome to attend.
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