collaborative_daredevil | Slavery RP Post XVIII

"Hello Toffee, DA Barba." He smiled at them both. "Your physiotherapist will be available in ten minutes."

"Thank you," he said, and walked with Toffee to sit down in waiting, and it felt like an eternity.

This time he'd brought his travel project with him, and he worked on that as they waited to be called - not too long.

Barba stood as Toffee's name was called, and went with him into the back offices and rooms.

"Hello Toffee. Did you sleep well last night?" He was looking a lot more rested than he had the week before.

"Yes, I got an early night all curled up with the whole household."

"That's good. Do you want to get straight into your warm up, or did you want to talk first?" Since his master was here. And Toffee looked to his master for an answer.

"We can talk while he stretches and warms up," Barba said carefully. "We've made some changes in what Toffee's doing and what he's allowed to do for now."

"Oh?" She carefully kept her voice neutral as she began guiding Toffee through his warm up. DA Barba had a reputation for caring about pets, so he wasn't likely to have decided to discontinue physiotherapy.

"Yes. We were very much overextending Toffee, he was simply stretched too thin in all these areas, so he's taken a withdrawal from all his classes save one, and I also found out he was being taken far too often to parks and just being overworked, so now I've put a limit on once a week for now for those. He needs to have energy for this, his class, and on rebuilding skills, and he was really being run ragged."

"Ah, yes that makes sense." And explained last week nicely.

"I need to know how the extra stress and lack of sleep have been affecting Toffee, if you know anything else," he said quietly. "I'm very concerned with making sure we didn't do any permanent damage--he says he just hasn't been able to walk as well, and I've been noticing balance problems getting worse."

"I see. Until last week his issues weren't any worse than to be expected with the move to a new situation and he was improving again." A bit more slowly than she'd have preferred, but if he was stressed and getting overtired that would explain that - and she certainly wasn't going to mention it where Toffee could hear. "Toffee, can you try for thirty seconds on the balance board today?"

"Yes, I'll try." He made it almost through the full thirty seconds.

Barba watched and smiled, remembering how upset Toffee had been the last time Barba had been there, how impossible he'd have found this. Perhaps they really didn't irretrievably fuck Toffee all up.

He smiled proudly at Toffee, and nodded approvingly, but tried not to interfere.

"On to the weights now?" He asked hopefully.

"To start, yes." And his physiotherapist looked as approving as Master Erik did.

"Our policy with pets is to contact the owner if there are two bad weeks in a row. But I can tell that you caught the problem in time yourselves."

"I appreciate your diligence," he told her quietly, watching Toffee. "He's so much stronger than he looks, isn't he? I'm so lucky to have him," he said softly.

"And stronger than he thinks as well." She smiled at Toffee as he worked.

"But you said he's been doing well here, despite all the not sleeping, the exercising to exhaustion, all of it?" he asked, a little worried still.

"He has been improving despite all of that, yes." And now she directed Toffee into his fist set of flexibility exercises.

"I take it you're putting measures into place to prevent those issues in future?"

"Yes. We've cut out the majority of his workload, and I've insisted that he not be exercised at a pet-park more than once a week. He's also not allowed to just suffer silently if he has nightmares or wakes up at night--he has to come either get one of us or at minimum tell us immediately in the morning." The image of him crying alone at night haunted Barba. "He's also going to learn more of how to cook."

"Hmm." She nodded in understanding at that, letting Toffee move on to more of his preferred strengthening exercises.

"I think that once he's recovered a bit more it should be possible to ease the restriction on pet park visits."

"He was being dragged there twice a day, and told us that he felt so exhausted he was crying alone at night. I'm disinclined to allow that," he said a little coolly.

"Of course." She nodded in agreement, even as Toffee made a soft noise of surprise. "But when he feels comfortable enough to suggest going specific places I don't think it's necessarily the best choice to limit him to visiting a pet park once a week given that they're among the safest places for pets."

"Ah," Barba said, and thought calmly about what she meant, as much as he could, and watched Toffee move and twist, his muscles flexing and bunching. "I understand what you mean--I'd rather Toffee be in one of the places with security, gates, the staff and dozens of pets around all the time than running around in the city alone or anything of that sort. But at the same time, he needs time to rest and time for leisure, just as my other pets have that too. Well, Hendrick would work ten-hour days if I let him more than a few times a month, but you understand my meaning," he said with a shrug.

"Of course. I was thinking allow more weekly visits, up to maybe three or four a week as he recovers." She hesitated, then continued. "I thought you'd mentioned the restriction to get my feedback on how it meshes with his physical condition."

"I appreciate your expertise," Barba said, a little confused by what she meant. "May I ask--once Toffee is ready for more...intimiate exercise, shall we call it...should we consult you here for limitations?"

"I can certainly sit down with you to consult on that." She nodded in agreement.

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