Life continues to be an adventure with our new Golden Retriever, Buddy. He was neutered last Tuesday, a procedure that should have been a non-event. However, Buddy took exception to having stitches in his privates, and succeeded on removing some of them, setting his recovery back. So on Friday he was back in the vet's, where he received staples to hold the whole thing together. He's on an antibiotic because he got the incision infected, and has to wear a cone on his head so he won't attack the wound. The cone causes him high stress, and so to calm him down, he has to take Benadryl. We tried valium, but it had no effect.
We were also supposed to put an antibiotic salve on the incision, but Buddy was so terrified of having someone touch him there (he's a little paranoid by now) that he bit JD when we tried to put some on the incision on Saturday night. So JD had to go to the doctor's and get an antibiotic for his wound. Now we have to take Buddy to the vet every day so they can treat it, since we're not interested in any more bite wounds.
The conehead thing stresses Buddy out so much it is hard to get him to relieve himself outside. The whole thing has turned into such an ordeal, I'm wishing we never had him neutered. We're now looking at a minimum of another week before this is healed. I don't know if any of us will last that long. JD is still sleeping on the couch to keep Buddy company at night. We can't let the dog upstairs, because that has become the cats' sanctuary. They refuse to go downstairs if the dog is around.
So here we are, a crazy conehead dog, two frustrated cats and two exhausted humans trying to survive this madhouse in the middle of winter.
No! Neutering him was the absolute right thing to do. Of course it is now totally out of hand, but "this too shall pass." Not only will he be calmer, but he will be happier in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI always feel sorry for animals in the conehead thingies. I can understand why Buddy would be stressed.
You are going to have to spend some extra time with him when this is all over getting him to settle down so you can handle him. Once he's healed, give him lots of exercise. Retrievers are high energy dogs bred to run and hunt all day. He needs a job to keep him busy. *L*
It was probably a good thing to have him fixed, but the cone can scare some dogs - our Golden would run into doorways and scare himself and was pretty worried about the whole thing. Can he have the cone off sometimes when he is supervised?
ReplyDeleteWe tried giving him some time off from the cone, but ended up correcting him so much, we were afraid he saw us as the "meanies" instead of the cone. He got a couple of walks in the woods today, so that helped his state of mind. He has figured out how to drink with the thing on. We hold up his food bowl so he can eat. After he's better and gets some obedience training down, we're going to start him in agility. It should be a great outlet for his high energy.
ReplyDeleteAgility would be great! I have a friend here who trains his Corgis in agility and herding. What a great outlet for Buddy and fun for you...you'll get some extra exercise, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteWow, poor guy! Sorry JD got bit. Who knew it would be so traumatizing for Buddy. I stayed with a dog with a cone once and it didn't bother her at all. Except the poor thing had no depth perception and ran into things all the time, I tried not to laugh but it was kinda cute. I hope Buddy is feeling better soon and you are all able to get back to some sense of normalcy!
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