Part of the pack

In my post last week I mentioned that we have a dog, and the fact the my husband became her number 1 overnight. Well today I wanted to touch on a relationship that's probably not really thought about in terms of long term illness: the relationship with our pets. 

Anyone who has a pet will know they are part of the family, and how they rely on us humans for everything - well... maybe not so much cats, but you get the gist. Before I became poorly, my husband and I shared the doggo load, with me being the chief walker/trainer/dinner provider and my husband being the breakfast feeder/trainer. The intention was that I would be the main person training our dog, who when I became poorly was only 6 months old. However, as with everything this went out the window on that fateful day, and so my husband became chief of everything. 

Now, why would this impact on my relationship with our dog? Well for one, she became my ever watching shadow, she is also immensely careful around me and to this day does not like to sit on me, and if she does, she avoids my lower right abdomen by doing some interesting body contortions; I find this last part incredible because that is where the bulk of my pain is, and somehow she just 'knows' to avoid it. 

Although this seems sweet, and don't get me wrong I absolutely love that she is looking after me in her own way, it has meant that I have become the bottom of our pack. Why is this an issue? It means that she has become less inclined to listen to me, more possessive when I try to take things off her and just generally less respectful of me than she should be. Now I'm a little more functional, I am trying to work on this by having some 'me and doggo time': taking her for some off lead walks (Unfortunately I can't have her in the lead as her pulling causes awful pain and sickness), doing little bits of training around the house, and just generally trying to build our relationship back up to where it was. Unfortunately this isn't going to fix itself over night, and she can still sense that I'm the weakest in the pack, making it an up hill climb. 

On another note, dogs also have an incredible way of picking up on our emotions; this becomes especially obvious when I'm having my therapy, as our dog will come and lie next to me throughout, and when she senses I'm getting rather emotional she will come and cuddle up to me in her own way of offering comfort. She also knows when I'm having especially bad days and becomes extra 'clingy' and enables 'velcro dog' mode, barely leaving my side. From this, it's safe to say I'd have been lost for the last 18 months without our dog and she, along with my husband, have been my rock through all of this. 

In short, long term illness doesn't just impact the humans in our lives, it impacts on our animals friends too. 

Ta ta for now! 

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