Good news

Trooper still must wear splint and cone, but things are a lot better than before.

Today, two weeks after Trooper was attacked by a shepherd mix whose bite broke his left hind leg, the vet removed the stitches, replaced his splint and cleared him to travel by train to Washington, D.C., to spend the holidays with our elder son and his posse.

And Amtrak has changed our sleeper tickets from upstairs bedrooms to downstairs family and handicapped rooms. No way we could have carried Trooper up and down those narrow winding stairs on the bilevel Superliner sleeping cars.

We still need to keep my fuzzy little service dog sedate and quiet so that his leg can knit properly. To see him today, you’d never believe that it has been just 14 days since his leg was set surgically. He wants to run and gambol like the terrier he is, and we just can’t let him.

We are giving him the next couple of months off from his hearing-dog duties. No jumping up on me to alert me to the door, the phone, or the call of my name. But I’m confident he’ll remember his tasks when the time comes. If there’s a problem Laura, his trainer, will come out from Dogs for the Deaf in Oregon to give us a refresher course.

What's more, thanks to the Evanston animal warden and a few good friends, we seem to be making progress regarding the owner of the aggressive dog.

There seems to be a rosy light at the end of this once very dark tunnel.