Three weeks ago, we rushed our our 6-year-old Havanese, Alfred, the world's cutest canine, to the animal hospital with a leg injury. He had surgery and has been recuperating, surrounded by love and peanut butter. You can read more about it here.
Alfie just had his first vet follow-up, and his is on the track to recovery; his leg sutures were removed, the cone collar has been retired, and now we have 12 weeks of a lot of rest and a little physio.
It's been a stressful two weeks for my fur-ball best friend, and an extremely stressful two weeks for me... and yet I have learned a few things:
1- Doggie drugs are good: they relieve pain and make him tired and groggy and easy to keep still.
2- Peanut butter solves all ills... Alfie can be a fussy eater, yet easily took all his pills and liquid medicine several times a day, each time wrapped up in peanut butter. So yep I am thinking he is going to expect hand-fed peanut butter every morning now. And yep I could do that...
3- Dogs don't listen... ok, that is not exactly new news.
4- Beagles listen sometimes, occasionally, maybe, okay not really... our 10-month old beagle Anderson is sweet and playful and energetic and does not understand that Alfie is injured. He just wants to play, which Alfie can't. So it takes two parents to wrangle these two dogs. But we can all nap and cuddle on the bed together. And yep the beagle is getting mucho peanut butter also.
5- Doggie day care is brilliant.. while both our dogs typically go three days a week, Alfie is now out for several months, and Anderson is up to five days a week. We would take him more if they would open more. We want the puppy as tired as can be.
6- Cone collars are ugly and itchy and evil and absolutely effective... I hated the damn thing as much as Alfredo did, but when it was briefly off he went straight for his stitches.
7- A superficial impractical fashion purchase can be a good thing: years ago I bought Alfie a red leather Coach leash which is too short for him and I didn't use it. Now we use it full time, inside and outside, to keep the injured doggie close and safe and immobilized. Too short is the perfect length now. And it is stylin...
8- Canine Injury Theorem: what the dog wants to lick will be in inverse proportion to what he should be licking... also known as "keep the Gene Simmons tongue away from the damn Frankenstein leg!"
9- Dogs wanna run, dogs wanna jump...
10- A tunagasm is a welcome temporary escape: Alfred loves tuna --- we pour the tuna-water over his food which he then devours, and the occasional tuna scrap makes him bounce... so much love that when we open any can at all he assumes it is tuna and the tumbling and whimpering and overall tuna-orgasm begins... and even injured and in pain this got him very very happy... "tuna-gasm" happy!
Last night Alfie was having nightmares -- woke me up twice, he slept right through... not sure what they were about, my husband thinks the little prince is scared of the day he won't be carried around anymore!
Posts
