Well done Gracie!

My longest standing friend, Jennie, has a beautiful black Labrador, called Gracie, who is now over 14. In human years that equates to 98 years old! Jen has a daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren who live in America and the only way for her to visit them for Christmas was for someone to look after Gracie. Fortunately, I have an understanding husband who agreed that we could dog sit for the two-and-a-half weeks Jen would be away.

Gracie is very arthritic, totally deaf and, like every Labrador, adores her food. Jen has prolonged her life by encouraging Gracie to play dog-tennis (she knocks the ball back to you when you bounce it towards her nose) and with an abundance of love and care. Gracie is obedient – even with sign language now she’s deaf. I have become used to getting up early to let her out, to encouraging her to go for a gentle walk to keep her mobile and to give her the occasional treat for good behaviour. Well-behaved she most definitely is and she has a bright spirit that I totally admire for someone of her age.

We are now at day 17 of our 19 day stay and Gracie has lost weight. She has a waistline and her arthritis has improved. She is perky and instead of going for a five minute plod around the garden where I was anxious that I shouldn’t take her too far in case we couldn’t make it back, we can now easily manage a 30-minute walk every day. And she’s loving it! All that’s happened is that I have cut back on the treats, (because I don’t give them to our dog Waise so I just didn’t think about giving them to Gracie!) and have gradually increased her activity. It wasn’t a planned strategy. It just happened, but the benefits have turned out to be huge! And it set me thinking about humans. It doesn’t take a lot to turn a lifestyle of snacks and inactivity around to one of no snacks and increased activity to see a massive improvement in our health.

In just over two weeks Gracie has her figure back, has significantly improved her mobility and has loads more energy. She is wagging her tail all the time. I know she will be ecstatic when her mum returns on Wednesday but maybe this has been a break from habit, a bit of a watershed, to help her on her way to her 15th birthday. Perhaps we should all take a lesson out of Gracie’s experience!