One of the reasons I agreed to try trekking poles for better balance is my unsteadiness outdoors with Muriel. She has an indefatigable prey drive and troubling tendency to tune me out at the sight of anything she might kill (and eat) with impunity — if afforded the opportunity. This unruliness is especially problematic in our backyard, a veritable smorgasbord of gamey delights.
To prevent her from tweaking her back or committing more ritual murders (as Crankenstein calls it), I often take her outside on a leash attached to her harness.* It gives our wildlife visitors time to beat hasty retreats and minimizes how suddenly and violently she can wrench her lower spine. The problem is that Muriel, who isn’t the brightest bulb, doesn’t care that we’re tethered to each other and lunges in the direction of the nearest would-be treat as soon as the door opens even a crack.
If I hadn’t already told Crankenstein that I’d try a leg brace, the past week of attempting to juggle Muriel’s leash and a trekking pole would’ve convinced me. There’s no way to safely or comfortably head out the door when she’s in Kentucky Derby mode, ready to bolt from the gate; the PT’s alternate suggestion, a four-point cane, wouldn’t change anything, either (other than making me feel like Fraiser’s Martin Crane).
After three days in a row of thwacking my stick-carrying hand against the door frame, I left it indoors every last time we went outside today. There are other ways I can approach this in the future, like giving Muriel a training refresher about leash manners, or leaving a pole on the patio so it’s there if I need it. But a brace might be more useful in that situation and others requiring freer hands — such as when I’m doing laundry in the basement, the scene of many stumbles and spills.
None of this was much of a problem in the past, when she could sprint out the door ahead of us, as free as the birds she hungrily eyes like Eric Carmen. Her spinal drama changed that, first because it required months of no-activity and low-activity rehabilitation, and now because we’re supposed to temper her most reckless physical impulses in hopes of keeping her condition stable.
She has no way of understanding that, which makes me feel bad even though she still enjoys a happy, active life — albeit one with less hunting and fine yard-to-table dining than she’d prefer. It strikes me as sort of funny that we’ve gone through something similar, and when I put on my dopey Muriel voice and try to articulate her silliest thoughts, I refer to her spinal disease as early-onset Barkinson’s.
* The worst crimes she’s committed in front of me involved rabbits; Crankenstein witnessed her predate upon a nest in a small tree, catapulting defenseless baby birds to the ground and gleefully crunching them like Doritos in the span of just a few seconds while ignoring orders to stop. It was pure luck that she was leashed when a neighbor’s (illicit) chicken escaped from its coop and ended up in our old backyard. It took all of our combined strength to keep her from whipping up a homemade McNugget Happy Meal that day, and both Crankenstein and I heard “Yakety Sax” in our heads as we wrestled her into the house.