Goya history of physical progress

In response to someone's email, I dug out the notes gary and I had made about Goya's progress oving his body through this disease. It might help others get a picture of the fits and starts and how slowly he started to come around. These dates are before we started the blog. Aftr April 1, we put progress on the blog (like sitting up, walking, taking stairs, and standing up), so you can find that progress in the posts.

Here's the timeline of his physical progress.

• 12/05/05 -- weakness in back legs in morning; couldn't stand at all by nighttime -- it took a few days for him to hit bottom with the tail and bark being the last to go.

2-weeks passed when he was really bad and we were figuring out how to care for him. We didn't take notes during this period.

• 12/17/05 -- I saw him move his foot while dreaming -- a vet-tech told me this was not a sign of anything but I took it as hopeful anyway
  
• 12/19/05 -- definitely wagged his tail when my daughter walked in the room, wagged often by 12/21

1-1/2 months passed with no notes about physical progress. We were writing notes every day about what he ate, drank and eliminated, so I believe no noticable physical progress was actually made in this period.

• 01/31/06 -- jerked his foot when I squeezed his toe (while cutting his toenails). Did this repeatedly. This was the first movement we had seen in almost 2 months. (Unfortunately, I didn't write down which foot moved.)
• 02/04/06 -- moved his front feet while dreaming very definitely. We hadn't made any notes of that since the middle of Dec so I assume we didn't see it in the interim.
• 02/05/06 -- interested in chewing a plastic milk bottle (his favorite toy). He did it on his side, with me holding the bottle, for about 5 minutes. This was the first sign of him showing much interest in activity other than being petted.
• 02/08/06 -- front paw moved while dreaming
• 02/09/06 -- 1-2 inches of movement in back left foot when I tickled between the pads. He tenses th muscles in his front left leg when I squeezed his front paws. It is now 2 months since he went down and I can finally get any movement repeatedly in response to an action I take.

5 weeks passed with no notes about physical progress.

• 03/16/06 -- in anticipation of getting a hot dog, he _almost_ rolled from one side to the other. This is the first note of him rolling. NOTE: He _still_ (August) can't roll from one side to the other on his back reliably, even though he can walk. To get from one side to the other, he pushed himself up on his belly and tucks his legs under him (it looks painful, but he never complains). He did roll over 3 times on March 16th, but hardly ever again.

Almost 2 weeks passed.

• 03/29/06 -- he pushed against my legs with his front feet.
• 04/01/06 -- took "steps" while in the cattle sling (that is, he didn't have any weight on his feet, but he moved them appropriately when they brushed the floor as I rolled him from the couch to his mattress).

This is where the blog picks up on his physical progress and notable improvements appear in the blog from here on.