When I took Chilly the Dog to the vet last week, she determined that Chilly probably needed some anti-inflammatory medication due to his old age. Over the year that we’ve had him, he is slower on the stairs, can’t jump up onto our bed, and prefers short walks over long ones.
Since adopting Dobby the Dog this summer, Chilly has been a cranky old man who only tolerated the new dog in the house. This past weekend they bonded tremendously when I had them take a 2-day vacation elsewhere during the White Elephant weekend. This week Chilly has been much more tolerant of Dobby’s quirks, and they’ve even begun taking naps next to each other the sofa (a rarity pre-WE weekend but it has happened every night this week).
Two nights ago I saw the combination of anti-inflammatory meds and their bonding at work when I let them outside. After they each wandered around for a few minutes, doing their thing, Chilly came running over to Dobby (a first) and then zoomed past him, clearly wanting Dobby to follow.
Naturally, Dobby followed and gave chase. And then Chilly turned and went running in the other direction – which completely shocked Dobby, but not for long before he was running after Chilly.
It was so fun to see them genuinely playing together and enjoying the brief run around the yard. Dobby still has heartworms, so he is not allowed to exercise a lot – you could tell he was overjoyed that Chilly was playing with him. And Chilly was behaving like a puppy himself – tail wagging, smile on his face (seriously), and ears perked up as he played keep away from Dobby. So. cute. Last night when I got home I immediately went out with the dogs and they did the same thing. I whipped out my phone so I could record them but somehow didn’t get the record button pushed so I missed it. It’s a shame, too, because they ran around together for more than a couple minutes, tails wagging in tandem the whole time.
I’m 100% chalking it up to the medication for Chilly’s arthritis as well as the bonding they experienced as a result of their doggie vacation. Now if I can just get Dobby’s heartworms to go away – he very clearly needs to be extensively exercised – as soon as he is heartworm negative I’ll be using him as my long-distance walking dog. But I can’t do that until he’s cleared medically. Until then I can only take him 1-2 blocks a day. Booo…