It's a dilemma. We can exert control over Jackie's movements by keeping him on leash. Or we can allow him to roam about to his little heart's content off leash, and hope he doesn't suddenly indulge in a wild dash after a squirrel which will result in a re-injury. He still skips part of the time, hopping along effortlessly on his three long, nimble legs around fifty percent of the time when we're out in the ravine. Doing so doesn't seem to bother him. It bothers us.

We know that this kind of 'skipping' is common to poodles. Both our other little poodles, Button and Riley often indulged in it, but not for the prolonged periods that Jackie is now doing so, when he never did before. Poodles, particularly small ones are also known for slipping their hind legs at the joints and we used to give them Glucosamin for shallow knee-joints. He doesn't skip when he's at home. But on the other hand, at home he's mostly relaxing, snoozing, a lay-about on the sofas.

But there too he's becoming more like his normal self, pre-incident that caused him to react to what we imagine was a painful event. He has always been sensitive to being touched, since the time we brought him home to live with us, along with his sister, when they were three months old. We guessed that though the breeder advertised for months (we'd seen the advert in the papers), people wanting to bring a toy poodle into their home would reject our two because though toy they may be by breeding, they're both the size of miniature poodles.

Jackie is normally a joyful, fun-loving little fellow, anxious to be played with and petted once you get by his initial shrinking back from an extended  hand. He is far more agile than his sister who is slightly shorter and notably heavier than he is. She has a normal physical conformation while her brother is lean and muscular with a metabolism rate twice hers, so he eats twice what she does. They both at the best of times tend to be a little neurotic as very small dogs often are.

Since the incident (which remains a mystery to us) when he suddenly reacted in the strangest way, heart beating furiously, trembling, heavy panting and leaping to the highest point he could attain as though to remove himself from ground level where something occurred to give him pain and/or frighten him, it's been a long, slow process trying to understand what occurred and how to go about rehabilitation.

He's on medication to relieve pain and reduce emotional stress and his veterinarian believes he has located the nexus of the problem -- Jackie's nervous temperament complicated by an acting-up sciatic nerve -- we've seen steady improvement. He's more willing to play with Jillie now, more assertive about getting about and definitely excited when he sees we're preparing to take him and his sister out for a ravine trudge through the forest trails we're all so familiar with.

Yesterday was the temperature-mildest day we've had in a month, about 9C, heavily overcast and humid. We met up with four dogs being walked by two young women, none of whom we'd ever before seen. There were two Goldens and two Bernese Mountain dogs loping along one of the ridges as we hauled ourselves up a long slope of one of the many hills in the ravine. The Goldens were silent and friendly as Goldens tend to be, while the other two, though also friendly, emitted constant deep-bellied, gruff woofs that Jackie and Jillie were happy to echo.

It has been a disappointing few days for us. For one thing, concern over Jackie fairly well consumed our attention. Since Monday evening when he began acting so strangely we could hardly credit his behaviour, we've been trying to come to grips with it all. He was hysterically excitable, restless, panting, trembling, tail permanently parked between his two back legs, insisting on being held. He has never been a cuddly dog, and now suddenly he has needed the comfort of being held to somehow pacify some unknown demon that had taken up residence in his little head.

A visit to the veterinarian clinic the following day gave us the seeming assurance there was nothing immediately identifiable physically wrong with him. No fever, eyes bright, no throat obstructions, heart beating within the normal range, albeit obviously stressed, and his legs and chest seemed fine. Everything checked out, everything with the exception of the mystery of what it was that had and continued to give him so much stress.

He behaved as though he was terrified of something. At first raced about madly, then jumped as high as he could to attain height; atop the sofa, our bed pillows, atop a basket holding some of our outdoor gear sitting on a bench in the laundry room, even leaping up to the counter top of the powder room vanity sink. As though the higher he got the safer he would be, trembling all the while.

We've been administering a calming and pain medication every eight hours prescribed by the vet who wasn't able to diagnose anything wrong and thought we would have to go for diagnostic blood tests, X-rays, a visit to a veterinarian neurologist. Gradually he improved, began resting calmly. He ate his meals, but didn't want to go out to the backyard to evacuate. He would hold his urine a full day and then squat for a prolonged release, rather than lift a leg as he normally does.

Early this afternoon I managed to enthuse him enough to play some rough-and-tumble games with me and his sister, and he was enthusiastic and seemed happy, finally. We had already missed two days of heading out to the ravine for hikes in the forest. It had rained the previous two days so it didn't seem urgent given that we knew that whatever it was troubling him wouldn't be conducive to his enjoying a hike, but today we felt in reflection of his improved state, we would give it a try.

Walking him on the leash to ensure he didn't dash off anywhere, we realized he was hobbling along with his right back leg lifted. Poodles tend often to do that; Button and Riley frequently did, skipping along with one back leg raised, on occasion. When we saw Jackie doing that we thought little of it at first, and that was early Monday before the occasion of his startling reaction to something that left us in the dark.

And then we realized he was asking to be picked up because walking was difficult all of a sudden, and presumably painful. And thinking about it, that's why he shied away from peeing, because normally he would raise one leg, place his weight on the other ... which led to his doing neither, and eventually squatting to eliminate urine.

The trails were drenched, so was the foliage, since rain had just stopped as we had ventured out. More foliage was down off the trees, and on the forest floor. The beech trees which tend to be among the last to change colour, had done so in the last several days, and their bright and deep bronze colour glowed in the rain-soaked landscape; beauty aplenty.

My husband had lifted Jackie and carried him throughout a truncated hike. We ended up on a much shorter circuit than usual, Jackie being carried in my husband's arms to spare him any further discomfort, while Jillie went on ahead, as she usually does. Now, at least we have the relief of knowing that it was the shock of sudden pain and discomfort that had provoked such a peculiar reaction in our little dog. He had injured his leg and we hadn't realized that, and when it reached a point where it was seriously painful, he had reacted. Who wouldn't?

He needs more rest to aid recovery before he can be exposed once again to our usual routine.