Sophie had her spay op on Tuesday and came through it very well. She is the smallest dog in the housepack and Summer and I were a bit concerned about her but as it turns out our worries were groundless. Now, two days later, she is back to her normal stroppy self.
She had been to the vets a few times before for routine vaccinations and microchipping and normally enters the surgery like an old hand; Tuesday however was different; we had a good car trip down to Santa Fe where our vet has his surgery she was standing on her back legs most of the way, gazing out of the windows and remonstrating with anything or anyone she happened to see and was as happy as a lark until I parked up. What a change... she started shaking and trembling, all bravado gone. She flatly refused to get out of the car and I had to lift her out. She immediately tried to bury herself in my jacket and i realised then just how scared she really was. I got back into the car and sat her on my lap but she buried herself in my jacket again. We sat outside the surgery for a full quarter of an hour before she finally stopped trembling and poked her head out from the inside of my jacket. Quite what she expected to see I don't know... but having frightened herself so much she was in desperate need of a pee and clearly now wanted out of the car.
I put her lead on and led her off away from the surgery to a spot a few yards away which most visiting dogs tend to christed before or after visiting the vet. Sophie then took a long pee and when she had finished I took her for a walk around the block so as to approach the surgery from a different angle. This time she was ok and danced into the surgery like Muhammed Ali ready to take on all-comers. The vet was waiting for us, he had seen me sitting in the car with her, so I explained what had happened. Needless to say he had seen it all before.
He took Sophie from me and checked her over then said that she seemed calm enough so the op could go ahead. He suggested I collect her at around 5pm by which time she would be mostly out of the clutches of the anaesthetic. I watched as he carried her off to the little op theatre and then I left.
It was a long day... I arrived back at the vets just before 5pm. Sophie it seemed had been puking on and off for a couple of hours and was curled up on a towel in one of the recovery crates. She didnt want to come out and was obviously feeling quite poorly. She puked again as I went to retrieve her from the crate so I cleaned her mouth, then slipped her lead on and took her outside into the fresh air. That seemed to be what she wanted; well, that and a pee, so once again we went over to the little area where she did what was needed. I took her around the block again and she seemed happy enough, so I put her into the car and went back inside to settle up.
The trip home was uneventful, so I took Sophie for another little walk just to get rid of any remaining after anaesthetic symptoms. When I finally took her back into the house, we were met as always by the rest of the pack; she immediately went on the defensive and barked and bullied her way inside then, having found her normal place on the chair she curled up and went to sleep. Later that evening at bedtime I gave her half a painkiller tablet (doggy ' brufen). She installed herself next to me and again went to sleep. She didn't budge from her spot until morning. Since then she has been getting back to normal; she has decided that my lap is her choice of chilling out place. I'm happy to report that she is more or less back to normal, she is staying away from the antics of the rest of the pack; its as if she knows that the line of neat stitches down her tummy needs protection. These stitches come out on the 1st December.
So thats it...all the girls are now spayed and Fred's been snipped. Starting next month we will get Suzy and Pippa and Fred started on their routine vaccinations and microchips, steps towards getting their passports issued. Once that's out of the way it will be time for the rst of the gang to get their shots renewed. All this on top of the normal food bills... it ain't cheap... thanks again to the Little Pod Foundation for footing the vets bill for Suzy and Pippa's ops.
On Monday night my internet connection died; well it didnt so much die as was brutally murdered... Sophie during one of her evening chasing sessions with the rest of the pack, jumped up onto the desk where my computer station is situated and pushed over a freshly brewed mug of coffee all over the router. The router didnt react well... neither did the keyboard of Summer's computer work station, it too was flooded.
I phoned Telefonica to request a new router they told me that I would be off line 'til Wednesday when a techie would come to the house to instal a new router. OK; I can live with that, no great problem. Summers keyboard was also completely trashed soo I had to buy a new one.
In a normal household having a tradesman visit isn't too much of a problem; when the house has been converted to a two bedroomed kennel however its a different matter! The Telefonica guy that looks after our area is scared of dogs... bit of a problem then in that we have 9 of the buggers and nowhere to put them when anyone calls.
Sure enough yesterday at around 5pm Telefonica man arrives amidst 'mucho ruido' from the pack... barking loudly they are enough to ward off any unwelcome visitors. I poked my head out of the living room window and asked him to hang on whilst I sorted out the dogs. The two blackies Spike and Scruffy I confined to their crate, Sophie and Pippa (Sophies Mum) into another crate, Sox, Suzy and Fred bundled into the bathroom and Izzy and Leo shut up in the royal Quarters (our bedroom). Out of sight they might be but definitely not out of earshot... Spike and Scruffy barking and shouting, likewise Pippa and Sophie, wolf like-howls from Izzy and Leo upstairs and somewhat noise suppressed protests from the bathroom gang!
Telefonica man comments on the number of dogs and the noise level and I let him know that they all are rescues or former abandonados at which point he becomes a bit more understanding. Anyway he checked out our old router and its power supply and confirmed that both were U/S so he fitted a new one did the config thing and then went off, happy I think to be clear of the kennel!
guess that'a about all for now will leave you with a pic that I found 'out there' not one of our dogs and a bit cutesy but ...
bye for now...