Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Slow Heel, Quick Heal

Lomax has returned, and all is well. So well, in fact, that when I got him home last night, he wanted to run up the three flights of stairs to my apartment.

Does the thought of him doing that, freshly neutered and full of stitches, cause you to cringe, too, or is it just me?

Of course I didn't let him do it -- kept him on a leash and encouraged him to walk slowly despite his obvious gladness to be home. The first thing he did was drink about a gallon of water. The second thing he did was greet my roommate with his usual gusto.

The poor little man was exhausted, either from the previous day's surgery or from his pre-surgery romps at the kennel with littermate/neutermate Liam. Even the application of a cold -- very cold, mind you -- compress to his nether regions was surprisingly easy. He lay on his back and fell asleep where I was cradling him on the living room floor. He didn't even get up when the commercial came on for Disney's sled dog movie Eight Below...and that's his favorite thing on TV right now.

The stitches look clean and there's not much swelling. He hasn't yet made much of an attempt to bother the incision site, which is great, but I think the challenge will come when the soreness is gone and the hair starts growing back and making him itch.

I let him sleep wherever he wanted in my room last night, with the caveat that he'd have to wear The Dreaded Cone, because I can't very well supervise him when I'm asleep. He didn't protest when I put it on him, and he lay down next to my bed and snoozed before my head even hit my pillow.

When I woke up this morning, I saw him standing. That's it, just standing. Not sniffing. Not looking at me, or really at anything. I chuckled, and it was at that moment he noticed I was conscious, and so began the typical HEY-IT'S-MORNING-AND-WE-HAVEN'T-PLAYED-FOR-SEVERAL-HOURS-I-ALMOST-FORGOT-WHAT-YOU-LOOKED-LIKE-I'M-HUNGRY-LET'S-GO-SOMEWHERE-I-LOVE-YOU-WHAT-ARE-WE-DOING-TODAY wiggling.

So I figure he's fine.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

woohoo Lomax! Sounds like everything went well.

I love the end of your post Jenny. I swear my two have some sort of special power because they know the second my eyes open and I'm not even facing them. Perhaps they are sending telepathic messages to my brain to wake the heck up. ;-) They, too, do that little dance thing which in turn sends Lyric spinning in her crate outside the bedroom door!

The Dog Blog said...

Glad to hear everything went well. When I got Kirby home from his...operation, he cried the all evening, Even though they gave him a shot of pain reliever. So... goody for Lomax.

JuliaR said...

You have to apply cold compresses? How often? I suppose I shouldn't try to practise on Rockwell while he's still intact.

8675309 said...

Yyyyyeah, not a good idea, Julia. ;)

The vet suggested I apply a cold compress to his...former glory...twice a day, for ten minutes at a time, for 2-3 days. And remarkably, Lomax was very tolerant!

HanktheDog said...

Very glad all went well. Lomax sounds like a terrific personality.