Learning to walk on a sling

Today Dr. Bray greeted me before I got to see Boomer.  She brought out a piece of paper with pictures on it:

The top picture is of Boomer getting his sensory therapy. This is when they put sensors on Boomer's back paws where he lost the feeling and see when he reacts.  So, today was the first day that he could feel the hot and cold sensors.  They said that Boomer looked at them like seriously what's going on here?

The bottom picture is of Boom walking on the extra special treadmill in some Biomolecular building. So Boomer got to go on an adventure today to a different building and walk somewhere new.  So in this picture they are "tail walking" Boom, by holding up his back end by just the base of his tail.  This is one of the options that we do have with Boomer when wanting to walk with him, but you have to be down on his level.

Dr. Bray had to disappear because she had another dog that was in a similar situation as Boomer and she
was getting ready to do his surgery.

So earlier in the day when I talked to Dr. Bray I had asked if they could show me how to walk him with the sling and the towel. So, when they rolled Boomer out, yes I did say roll, he was on a cart sitting on the top like he was king. We went outside to go learn to walk with Boomer on the sling.  So, here's the video of Boomer walking to me in the sling:

This looks really encouraging for Boomer's progress.  He can walk with the support-- so he has motion in his legs and he needs just a little bit on support so he doesn't fall over (balance) and he can't get up on his own so he needs that start to get to walking.  So here's how he walks with the towel.

They also wanted Boomer to urinate while I was there because he hadn't all day and they had just measured his bladder.  So we went walking around and I was helping Boomer to walk by tail walking and he did end up peeing.  As soon as he was done sniffing, we went inside and they took him back to measure his bladder by ultrasound again.  It took about 5 minutes and then he was back and we got to sit in the exam room.

I was by myself today so Boomer and I just sat down together and he just laid in my arms.  It was good to just get to snuggle with him and let him relax.  It takes a lot out of him to do his walking so it was good to just snuggle and I was able to look at his incision.  His incision is really healing:

You can see in this picture that his fur is really starting to grow back as well.  So, we'll have to trim down his other hair so that it all kind of grows in together.  One of my co-workers said that Boomer's front paw where they had his IV in looks like he's just wearing one Ugg boot on his foot.  I thought that was cute!

Today's Boomer Selfie

Our snuggles in the exam room. 

We get to go visit him again tomorrow morning, but I think the most exciting news is that Dr. Bray said that Boomer will come home on SUNDAY! :) We are so excited to bring him home but know that it's going to be a big change. We look forward to seeing him tomorrow!