It’s been a few days since Charlie’s first acupuncture treatment. He seemed to respond well to it. He was doing absolutely great yesterday, but I think he may have went a little overboard. It’s so hard to tell him that just because he feels better doesn’t mean that he’s up to bouncing around like he used to do.

We live outside of Lewiston, ID, and Charlie goes with us whenever we head in to town for groceries and to run errands. He absolutely loves to ride in the car. (Partly, because he doesn’t like being left behind at home.) So, I took him into town with me yesterday, as I met up with a friend to go for a walk on the levy. We hadn’t been in this particular section of the levy for a while, so he had some good smells to catch up on.

There was one other dog being walked by his human, and so I pulled Charlie off to the side to sit until they passed. However, Charlie smelled the other dog, and proceeded to bounce around on his front legs, barking in his high-pitched, play bark.   Unfortunately, I don’t think his injured shoulder was back up to doing that yet. He’s been limping a bit today. And when Bob took him for today’s walk, Charlie went only about 100 yards before stopping and turning around.

We usually let him pick the pace and how far we walk, so if he wants to stop, we don’t push him. He has another acupuncture treatment this Wednesday, which I’m anxious to see how it goes.  As I said before, he was doing really well after the first one.

How do you explain to an old dog that he’s not a puppy any more?