Hills and stairs and green grass

Elliott is continuing to make progress in his recovery. At our rehab
visit last week, we got the go-ahead to start doing carpeted stairs,
once or twice a day, on a short leash in a controlled manner, SLOWLY.
Since then Elliott has been downstairs to the land of the big tv a
couple of times, and upstairs to the bedroom a couple of times. No
getting into the bed yet, though! We are also walking farther and
walking on hills. This has expanded our range to nicer grassy areas
where the geese hiss at us as we walk past their goslings. Tonight was
perfect for walking and we had a good number of things to sniff. Our
Ruff Wear harness looks good in any setting! In case you are wondering
about Elliott's collar, let me just say I do not use a prong collar on
a regular basis and haven't had it out of the closet for many years.
However, during this recovery, one of the most important elements in
staying sane is having the tools you need to keep your post-ACL dog's
body under complete control until healing is complete. Elliott has
many titles but is not always gentlemanly with the neighbour dogs we
meet while walking near our house. I need to be able to walk him with
complete confidence in my ability to prevent him from spinning round
in excitement or from jumping up and bouncing around. The prong gets
his respect instantly. When he is all healed and can't re-injure
himself and create a need to redo arduous, expensive, and traumatic
surgery, the prong can go back into the closet.