Month: July 2014

Buddy and I are spending a wonderful morning in the front yard. Buddy is enjoying the grass and I’m enjoying the birds and katydids and other insects singing in the trees. The little cardinal family pecking at the feeder and the bossy squirrels coming around to raid it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we keep the ace bandages on, Buddy completely ignores his stitches. We just have to make it one more day until the stitches are out. So I’m keeping the Ace bandages around him. But I have to re-wrap him a few times a day. This wrapping thing is clearly a skill!

I also looked at the post with the video about recovery and tried to feed Buddy standing up day before yesterday. Because he is so big, it is a long way to the floor with his food bowl. He would normally have bent down to eat. But now his one leg has trouble bending down. So I made him a food bowl stand. He liked it very much.

But I did notice last night when he was drinking from his water bowl (still on the floor) that his front leg and back legs were trembling. Could that just be because he has been lying down for the most part for two weeks? When his stitches are out can I start walking him around the block to build up his strength?

 

Since yesterday was my husband’s day off from work, I left him to watch Buddy while I went to work – a few hours away. Dennis called me at work in the mid-afternoon. Somehow Buddy managed to pull or tear part of his bandage loose. Dennis thought that since Buddy is moving around more that he possibly caught it on some corner of the furniture. I was afraid he had scratched it loose with his back foot.

Dennis wrapped an Ace bandage around it and I called the vet. I told them the bandages had been pulled loose in one place and the stitches were exposed but not damaged. I was in a panic again. Dennis said the Ace wrap would hold the bandages in place until I could get home and get him to the vet today. The vet’s office said that it sounded like it would be ok to wait until today.

So we are back to the vet this morning to get him re-bandaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part II

We went to the vet and the vet assistant took Buddy in to get his bandages fixed. But they asked the vet and she said that his stitches looked really good and he is having them removed in just two days so she thought we could just leave the bandages off. Hurray!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I brought him home and brought the other dogs into the living room with us. While I worked around on stuff the dogs napped or watched me…….. until…..

I looked over and Buddy was not only licking at his stitches, he was trying to chew them out!!! So I went right upstairs and got the two Ace Bandages and wrapped him up again. As long as he is wrapped up he isn’t messing with it. See my very bad wrap job  below. I’ll have to probably re-wrap him several times before Thursday.

Our house has several steps at various points to get in. The lowest is just two steps up to the front door. I made a ramp to help Buddy get in and out of the house. But he wanted nothing to do with it. After a great deal of frustration and tears,  someone on the forum here said that this was a common reaction with dogs to freak out about ramps, and the two steps really weren’t a problem – it’s the flight of stairs that he should avoid after surgery.

But I found the ramp does work for something else. Our front yard is raised about a foot from the driveways on either side. I can drive close to the raised yard and run the ramp across into the back door of the car, supported by two long 1X4 planks. And with the anticipation of getting into the car, Buddy has been willing to use it.

This has been a huge help for me to get him into the car from the house and get him out of the car at the house on my own. At the vet’s office I get someone to come out and help me unload and re-load him in the car.

You can see the ramp and planks leaning against the tree in the pictures of Buddy and the cats.

About a week after his surgery, it was a beautiful day so I put an old rug out in the front yard and let him lie out there while I worked on my laptop next to him. Two of the cats decided to come visit him. Sweetpea, the little black and white one started flirting and playing with him. It was a very good day – his red doll, the outdoors, a friend to watch and Mommy sitting close by.

Buddy had a check back with the vet 5 days after surgery to have his incision examined and his bandages changed. Then two days later I was concerned that he was coughing and the vet told me to bring him in. She listened to his lungs which sounded ok. She said he was probably vocalizing from discomfort – like we do when we try to stand up with stiff muscles. Then we were back at the vet today (two days after that) for his next visit to have his bandages changed and the incision examined.

Here is Buddy at the vet. He doesn’t want to be there. You see in picture 3 he wants out of the room. He’s tired of this vet office. I totally don’t blame him for that