What Nature Has To Offer

The underwater treadmill has been switched for the North Sea's surf. Muscle tone exercises on a wobble board are exchanged by slowly walking through sand on the beach and the dunes. Cavaletti's are done on the heath fields.

We are doing Kenzo's physical therapy with what nature has to offer.

It is a long shot.

The safe option would have been to stay at home in the city and visit the clinic for underwater treadmill sessions, possibly cold laser therapy, and other exercises overseen by a vet tech. The nearest vet with these facilities is too far away from where we are now at the West coast.

Then again. Kenzo is having so much fun. If I am wrong and his time is limited as the vet predicted - and I seriously doubt that still - at least he doesn't spend it in clinics and metal containers with water in them. He is out and about.

We wade though the water together, and even play with the ball in the surf. I only throw it just in front of him in stead of as far away as possible. The chase is just as great doing one step, as if he would need one hundred. The smile on his face leaves no mistake he prefers this over any underwater treadmill.

We also managed to visit his valley again. We could just reach it in the futile fifteen minutes we are allowed to make on our walk and I was rewarded with a great view and Kenzo with many scents of wild-life.

We do a little pic-nick in between the walks, I can read a book while he rests, and then we can continue our walk again for the next fifteen minutes. That way we can stay out longer, and it seems to make a lot of difference to him too, when he doesn't find himself inside after just fifteen minutes.

I do miss the opportunity to talk with the vet-tech regularly about his progress. It gives me security. On the other hand, these conversations also tend to worry me and there is something unnatural distant about it as well. Something which transfers Kenzo into the "patient", the mere subject of another appointment.

No, not having that opportunity is a small prize to pay when the reward is to observe how Kenzo is enjoying his new routines.