MYAH – A Tripawd-Goldendood's Story

Monday 4/11/16  Day 11

I had a feeling that Myah had too much stimulation at work this past week. She seemed really good at limiting her activity. However she looked more stressed out, especially on Friday.  I think it was good for her psychological healing, to have that ‘normalcy’ during some of her recovery days. However, after the first 2 days, I wondered if it made her realize all the things she wasn’t able to do?  Perhaps her ‘situation’ was getting into her head? I really sensed that she really needed more physical rest.  So I decided the entire weekend was going to be ‘all about’ resting and supporting Miss Myah.

After her first daytime of rest, on Saturday evening, I felt like Myah was more in pain emotionally, than physically.  So I decided to spend more floor time with her. I had just recently noticed that she moves from one bed to the other at night. Its almost like she sleeps on the cooling bed for healing time, then on the soft bed for cozy time.) So I set up my camping pad and sleeping bag in the living room. I had the cool-bed on one side of me, and her normal soft bed on the other side of me.  I had also begun to reduce her Tramadol dose. I knew was going to be able to see up close and personal how she reacted.

The night on the floor was very much worth it. She just needed more reassurance that everything is going to be great. Sure I often tell her that, but I think she needed to be ‘told’ through closeness and touch.  She seemed much less stressed on Sunday, but tired.  So I kept the room darker, and spent much of the day with her. It wasn’t hard to restrict her activity. She moved from one dog bed to the other, and also against my feet if I wasn’t on the floor. Periodically she would stand up and hop around and over to me and nose-whine. This seems to be her new way of saying, “I have to go outside. I don’t want to, but I have to.”

I had noticed on Friday, that she had just started to psych herself out a bit when she was outside. She was really thinking too much about each step that she needed to make. She began to hesitate to go down the two steps into the yard, where previously she hopped down them like they weren’t even there. On Sunday she was less hesitant, but still a bit leery of moving too fast. I think she was still counting her steps. However her appetite went back up to normal again, and she just seemed a bit more at ease.

Here are some  photos of Myah chillaxing on Sunday.  I gave her a new stuffed bear, and it was the perfect pillow.  I also sat with her in the sunshine. She was enjoying the ‘scratchies’ combined with the sun’s healing energy:

So Monday morning seemed like a very normal morning. For the first time in two months, I noticed that no special attention was needed for Myah.

When it was time to go to work, and she saw me reach for my shoes, and she eagerly stood up and stood by me with her tail wagging slowly.  I figured ‘why not?’ and told her to fetch her collar. (of course I opened up my iPhone to record it. ) The video is pretty dark, but I think you’ll get the idea:

Myah fetching her collar for the first time, post-op! [link disabled]

(The previous video link immediately began the process to down load the file. So I am taking the link down. When you read the next post, I spliced the ‘fetch collar video’ into the beginning of the YouTube video That I linked there.

When Myah got to work she was rejuvenated. A very happy tail waggin’ puppy! She even followed me around as I helped put out all the merchandise before we opened. (Normally its this time of day that she plays ‘flying catch’ and other fetch-type of games between each of my trips from the vault to the showcases.)  She really kept up her happy dog attitude throughout setting up the store. When she went outside to take care of her business, she fetched the paper. Even faster than her first time that you saw in my earlier YouTube video.

After all that excitement, Myah laid down for a long recuperation spell.  Throughout the day she did get up and move around possibly three times as much as she did last week. She is now down to just one Tramadol per day, as well as two Rimadyl and two of the Gabapentin.

At home she had another happy frolic time and ate another good meal.  As I was writing this all down, I suddenly remembered that I had wanted to trim the hair on her legs shorter.  The shaved band where they put her IV was really bothering me.  I knew if there wasn’t the difference of hair length of 2 inches, it wouldn’t look so extreme.  This was definitely the first day that I thought this wouldn’t bother her.  I used my vacuum hair-cutting machine. (A modern relative of the old Flobee from the early infomercials of the 1980’s) Using that machine is my version of the cheating way to give her a haircut.  Its soothing for her, as I rub the vacuumed assist cutting head up and down and back and forth. Its basically a massage for her!  It doesn’t cut very fast, but it does cut indoors, without hair everywhere. It is pretty noisy though…

After I decided I had cut enough. (Which, of course,  was 3 times more than I planned to do.) Myah was super excited and hopped around, picking up her newest stuffed toy. She was also eagerly anticipating a very large sized doggie biscuit. (Her unwritten, yet contractually required, payment for her to stand still for any type of grooming.)  At least the shaved band on her leg is a bit less extreme now. Not to mention that the haircut more or less cleaned her. It removes the longer portion of each hair. That tends to be the part of each hair that has more dirt or dust on it. Not to mention I am literally vacuuming any dirt and some odors right off of her. 🙂

I didn’t remember to take a ‘before’ photo, so I will use this photo from last week.

And compare it to this photo I just took:

It doesn’t seem to show as much in photos, but she went from 1.5 inch+ hair length down to a 1/2 inch (the closest the machine will cut.)

I have a feeling that our week will just keep getting better! 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2016 at 3:11 am and is filed under Read the POSTS!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.