Teflon fur

Well, the oozing has stopped for now.
I'm amazed that Chandler's throat fur has returned to pristine white.
I'd tried to clean him up yesterday with middling success.
However, it seems that within 24 hours his coat has repelled all the bloody ooze stains.
I knew he had a Teflon coat but this is almost unbelievable.

More updates

After having a good night, Chandler proceeded to have an awful day.
The wound finally decided to break open and drain.
I'm not sure if it was painful or just extremely disconcerting for him,
but he was frantic to try to get the fluids off of his fur.
Maybe it's some instinct that says he shouldn't look or smell wounded.

Anyway, he looks a mess despite my efforts to clean him up.
I've got towels thrown down all over, and have created a giant nest of them
in a blocked in area next to my bed.

*sigh* methinks I shall be washing a lot of towels with bleach this week.
At least his appetite is still good,
and someone from the ES list has offered to make me a bach flower remedy.

Update

Chandler seems to be doing very well, although I'm sure a lot
of that is the pain medication. He has a nasty looking swelling in
his neck but seems to be getting around ok.

He apparently took my father on a running (for my dad) trip around the
apartment building. We think he was looking for me and gave up when
there was no recent scent. Otherwise he spent most of the day
sleeping on a pile of blankets. Now he seems to be following me
around, as usual.

One can of canned dog food was quickly eaten, although he was less
enthused about his dry food this morning. He probably thinks I made a
mistake and give him a giant bowl of canned cat food! (Doggie heaven!)

Freak Accident

I have a GOOD dog.
I also have one of the luckiest unlucky dogs in the world.

Yesterday Chandler was zooming through the woods and somehow managed to impale himself upon a stick. Getting him to the vet when he screamed whenever I picked him up or the car went over a bump was an ordeal in itself. Unfortunately, I didn't know what had happened since the stick had broken off inside, and there was no blood, so apparently they didn't find it until they did x-rays.

It turns out the stick was over 7 inches long, an inch wide, and had passed right between his jugular vein and thoracic artery to become embedded in his lower neck. The entire staff of the vet's was impressed, to say the least. (I'm thinking I need to find his guardian angel and send cookies or something.)

And during all this, he never tried to bite ANYBODY. Not me when I had to pick him up, and not any of the vet's staff. (I have a VERY good dog.)

He's home today, stuffed with antibiotics and painkiller. I'm amazed he's limping around. I'm just glad he's here.

If anyone has any suggestions about what I can do to make him more comfortable while he's recovering, I'd appreciate it. The vet was decent about "here's the pills" but less so on the other stuff. I may be mounding up the cats' blankets for him...

Interceptor aftermath

Morning, and Chandler is fine.
One of the going theories is that the cats tried to assassinate him by knocking the box off the entertainment center.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Bad Puppy! (and we saw the orthopedic specialist)

I have been told a theory that we get good dogs for our first dogs, and thereafter are sent more challenging ones. By and large, this has been true of Chandler, and perhaps it has made me a bit too complacent.

He's never snuck anything off of counters, but today he apparently decided a new six month supply of heartworm meds would make a great snack. Fortunately, after two frantic calls to emergency clinics, and another two to different animal poison control hotlines, I found out that he should be ok. Thankfully, he does not have the MDR1 mutation that would make him more vulnerable to such a dosage. Thankfully, I had got him tested for it, and was able to tell the vet on the poison control line that it was not a factor.

So I'm keeping an eye on him for 24 hours, and he's been acting like his usual active self. Now, if I could just get my jangling nerves to settle down...

Otherwise...

Chandler had his visit with the specialist Thursday. It's mixed news.

From the xrays taken in August, his right hip is dysplastic although the left is pretty good.
His left has about 75% of the ball in the socket, but the right only has about 55%.
(At his guess that would probably get a good OFA on the left and a fair to poor on the right.)
There may have been some degenerative joint disease starting on the right.

He said it is possible that he had some loose joints that might have tightened up as he aged, but the right got injured when that other dog slammed into him in July.

He suggested that doing and OFA or PENNhip would mostly be a waste of money for me, and instead suggested that I should just consider getting some more diagnostic x-rays and palpitations of his hips done if he gets worse or if we already have him knocked out for a dental or something.

In the meantime, as he's mostly fine 99% of the time, I've been told I can give him some aspirin if he overdoes it. His gait is a little "off" and he puts more weight on the left side, but we can live with that as long as he's not in great amounts of pain. I just have to try to make sure he doesn't get slammed around too much-which will take a bit of planning with his Akita friend.

Technically the vet said he should have more on leash exercise, but that sort of thing actually made him worse over the summer, so I think I'm going to stick to letting him run on the hiking trails. Swimming was also recommended, which should not be a problem. (Keeping him out of water would be much more difficult.)

So, it's sort of a "wait and see" situation. I'm happy I at least got some straight answers from SOMEBODY.

Whee!

Two of Chandler's pictures made it into the 2007 English Shepherd calendar!
(Ok, so they're just little adjunct pics and not the main monthly ones, but I'm still happy.)
Now I have to figure out how many to order...already have one request from one of Chan's fan club.