Training & Behavior

The physio suggested it after his knee op, a simple stretch to loosen the shoulder he'd been favouring, and she demonstrated with a treat held just above the worktop, and the dog, Rye, lifted a paw to the cupboard like he'd been doing it his whole life, which is to say he'll lift anything for food, including, on one memorable occasion, my sandwich.

What she wanted was a controlled rear-leg stretch, the kind that builds the muscle without the dog knowing he's working, and the paw-up-on-the-wall trick turned out to be the gentlest way to get there, because the moment his front feet are planted and his nose is up, his back legs do a slow, useful stretch all on their own, the kind no lead walk ever manages to coax out of him.

So we made it a game. A paw on the wall, a treat at the top, a slow count of three, then release, repeated a few times morning and night, and Rye, who'd been sulking since the cone came off, started looking forward to it the way he looks forward to his dinner, which is the highest praise a dog gives and the only review the physio needed.

The physio was pleased at the two-week check. The muscle was coming back, the limp was shorter, and she said the wall stretch was doing more than the exercises she'd feared he'd refuse, because he thought it was a trick, not therapy, and a dog who thinks he's performing is a dog who tries, whereas a dog who thinks he's at the vets is a dog who goes deadweight in your arms.

I learned to read his body in those sessions. Which leg he favoured, how long he'd hold before the stretch turned to a shake, when he was done and just wanted the treat and a lie down. You notice more when you're asking the dog to do one small thing slowly than when you're marching him round the block on a lead, where his brain is on the squirrels and yours is on the clock.

We moved it to different surfaces. The cool kitchen tiles, the warm patio in summer, the low wall at the park where other dogs gawped, and each new place made him lift with a bit more confidence, until the stretch was just something he did, anywhere, for a biscuit and a word of praise, and the knee, which had been the centre of everyone's worry, became an afterthought instead of the headline.

The rehab took the best part of two months, and the wall trick was there the whole way, a constant small task that didn't ask too much on the bad days and let him show off on the good ones. By the end he'd bound up to the wall when I said the word, paws ready, tail up, a dog who'd forgotten he'd ever been sore, which is the best possible review of any recovery plan.

I've kept it in the routine even now the knee's sound, because a stretch a day keeps the old injury quiet, and because Rye loves an audience and the wall is his stage. The neighbours think it's a party trick. The physio knows it's maintenance. Rye just knows it ends in a treat and a pat, and the pecking order of his priorities is exactly that clear.

There's a lesson in it for anyone with a recovering dog, which is that the exercises that work best are the ones the dog thinks are fun, and a paw on the wall, a slow count, a release, costs nothing and asks only that you pay attention to the animal in front of you, which is most of what they ever wanted from us anyway, before the op and long after it.

People ask if it's hard, teaching an old dog new positions, and the answer's that it's easier than they think because the dog wants to please and the food does the rest, and the part that's actually hard is remembering to do it daily when he seems fine, because fine is when the injury sneaks back, and the wall keeps him honest in a way my memory, always busy, never quite manages without the dog standing there with his paws up and a hopeful look.

There's a quiet pride in watching a dog recover that no one warns you about, the way you start measuring the days in small wins, a longer hold, a steadier stand, a tail that stays up through the stretch, and Rye, who never asked for the op or the wall or the slow counting of three, gives it freely now, because the food's there and the hand's kind and the work, it turns out, was mostly just showing up each evening with both, and letting the dog do the rest at his own pace.