The grass is not always greener

Wow, it's been a while since our last post. The silence has certainly not been due to a lack of activity on this end. Daisy is making many strides (more on those later), but she did hit a bump in the road two weeks ago and it has taken a little while to get back on track.

We took the girls to Crissy Field on one of those gorgeous Sunday mornings at the end of February, where they ran like crazy. The grass was green and they munched in between fits of chasing each other. We ran into another group of Vizslas and stopped to chat while the dogs munched on more grass. Sensing a theme? Early spring grass always seems to attract dogs, and theories abound on why dogs eat grass. Some say they eat it to settle an upset stomach, but even vets can't seem to agree on exactly why grass is appealing to dogs.

It all seemed innocent enough at the time, but fast forward to the next afternoon, when Daisy throws up after a bully stick, and much of the contents of her stomach included undigested breakfast and a whole lot of grass. Ok, the episode is over, don't give her any food until dinner (and then bland chicken/rice watered down), but around midnight, the vomiting began in earnest. And diarrhea. In waves and even a couple hours apart. She was completely restless. Of course this was the morning that Erik had an early flight to the East Coast. At 2:30am I called SFVS and gave them symptoms and general update. They said to monitor Daisy and if it kept happening to bring her in. At 4am, things weren't improving and I took her to the emergency room. She was actually excited to get in the car (she always is). But poor thing was dehydrated and needed help right away. She looked as green as the grass she had eaten.

Daisy looking a little greener than usual

Lots of heavy duty meds, sub-q fluids, and no food/water for the next 12 hours. Then another late morning vet appointment to check status and healing of stitches from spay (another pesky and lengthy healing time), lots of sleep, and staying low key for several days. No grass! She got better, than it came back, tested for giardia which was negative, but more bland diet, meds, and recovery. Let's hope we don't do this again soon!

Going Coneless

We are Day 4 post-surgery and things are going well (knock on wood desk). As the post title suggests, Daisy is "going coneless". The first cone didn't fit and why would any dog willingly wear a cone? We certainly follow dr's orders on everything else, but since Daisy is under 24-hour supervision right now, there have been no signs of trying to itch the incision area, so why make a super shy and fearful dog even more uncomfortable and fearful?

Daisy stays safe under the table (note her shaved belly)

Since gambling is not really our thing, yesterday I ordered a Novagard. It is made by an Australian company, Provizor International. They make protective gear for equines and canines. Our holistic vet at SFVS, Dr. David Fong, DVM, LAc, Dipl OM, mentioned one of his clients had ordered an Optivizor after his dog's eye surgery, and when Alba had to have a low-grade melanoma growth removed from her eye a couple years ago, we used the Optivizor instead of a cone. It gave her more range of motion, but more importantly protected the stitches around her eye for over two weeks. It was not fun, but she could see and move better, and of course eat better too. And you can trim them to fit your dog. They are pretty genius products.

The Novagard is an alternative to the Elizabethan collar, and I ordered both the Novagard and Optivizor from Big Dee's Tack & Vet Supplies. I don't know why more vets carry these products - it is such a better and more customized alternative to the e-collar or cone.

So now we have cone insurance for Daisy (well it won't really arrive in time - but that's what insurance is like, right?) so we're hoping to sail through the next 6 days carefree and bully-stick happy.

Coneless is not a dirty word