Our Little ‘It’ Girl

Well, I haven’t put a post in forever. I keep being busy, and then although I have something to write about I’m too busy to write about it. And then the next thing happens, but think I need to write about the older things first, which is silly but it’s also just the way I am.

So here we go, out of sequence, a current event! (Not that I’m saying I won’t write up older stuff, just that I’m writing this up first.)

Lottie was spayed on 24 April, the Thursday before the long ANZAC Day weekend.It worked out well timing-wise with when her hormone levels should have been naturally low.  There was also the added bonus of doing it before a long weekend so we would have 3 days with her before leaving her on her own when we went back to work. I was actually away for work, in the North West of the state, for a couple days before, so Scott took her to Hobart Animal Hospital on Thursday morning. Then I returned from the north of the state, and Scott picked Lottie and me up from the vet. So far, so good. She was a bit quiet and tired and headed straight up to her beanbag bed in our bedroom as soon as she got home. I did my best not to be myself, i.e. didn’t go upstairs to check on her and watch her sleep (Far Mor lives!). The next morning she was pretty much her old self, a bit quieter than usual, but still our happy little girl.

The vet said the pain medication would start to wear off around lunch time on Friday, however she should be fine. She certainly didn’t seem in pain and wanted to play as usual – but started licking. And spent most of her time in her Schnauzer Lair (under our bed, in a cavity created with luggage on all sides except for an entry on Scott’s side of the bed, facing a piece of furniture). That night I didn’t sleep much, with her basically under our pillows licking herself and with me constantly telling her to stop. She spent Saturday licking as well. This was getting boring, and tiring, from being constantly awake to the sound of a licking dog. I thought if she was still licking the next day I should take her in to the vet, even though she wasn’t worrying the sutures – just licking. I was worried she could get an infection, especially as she has a beard.

Well, the next morning she slept in (tired from all the licking), so we missed the Sunday morning surgery hours. So it wasn’t until the afternoon we took her in. We saw Moira, who is lovely, and we chatted about both Lottie and Snuva. The sutures looked fine, however the licking was becoming a problem as she was actually licking through layers of skin. So she gave us some antibiotics, in case she’d introduced any nasties, some pain medication, in case the sutures were bothering her and that was why she was licking, and some valium, to try to help her get to sleep at night. I was excited about the idea of the valium to get her to sleep!!

The valium didn’t even make her pause. We were treated to yet another night of licking, licking, licking – although this time from her beanbag as we’d closed off the entries to the Schnauzer Lair. She kept trying to force her way in – she really wanted the comfort of the enclosed space, but it would be more difficult to stop her licking. Poor girl. She’d been without her matte for several nights, then she’d spent a day at the vet, where they doped her and sliced her open. Now all she wanted to do was be in her happy Lair and lick her wounds. But over night her tummy was even worse – the sutures were still fine, however she’d now licked through so many layers of skin the area around the incision was red and raw. So back we went to the vet. This time she got one of those highly attractive plastic cones to go over her head and some antibiotic-anti-inflammatory-anaesthetic cream. I brought her into the office until lunch while she was adjusting to life in a cone. Poor, poor girl! One of the people I work with, Helen Abbott, helped holding her down while I tried to put the cream on her. Helen found out just how STRONG Lottie is! It really pained Lottie to get the cream. However I can report that my fingers started to go numb after having it on them only long enough to spread it on Lottie, so it must have helped her a bit.

So Lottie’s spent the last week getting cream on her tum twice daily and living in her cone. It can’t be the most comfortable thing to wear. Think how much dogs use their mouth to do things. Picking up toys being made difficult is bad enough, however she also couldn’t use her mouth / tongue to scratch itches, etc. And she couldn’t use her paws to scratch her ears and muzzle. It would catch on steps as she walked up stairs and on door frames as she tried to go through them. It meant she closed herself into rooms unless we had the doors propped wide open. I tried taking the cone off her a few times during the week so she could scratch her ears, however she’d just go straight to licking her tummy. Finally, today at lunch time I took off the cone and she seems to be leaving the tummy alone. She spent a long time scratching her ears and muzzle though! Tomorrow we’ll go back to the vet to see if the stitches can come out. I certainly hope so! She could really use a bath (beard is even smellier than usual after the cone) and wants to run and leap and jump and probably even swim at her usual dog park, all things that she hasn’t been able to do much of with the sutures. Come on tomorrow!

Well, the internet connection and/or my computer are being insanely slow, so I can’t link any photos to this post tonight.  Hopefully I’ll have time to do it tomorrow.  I thought I shouldn’t delay posting for the photos or I’ll be back in my non-publishing loop!  If you go to Flickr, there’s at least one photo of her in her cone.