And It Was Doggy Stuff This Week

Lambeau gets mast cell tumors on his skin. He had one removed from a front leg a few years ago, and has had two more that we’ve been watching. A couple months ago, I thought the one had been getting bigger, and I knew he was fussing at the two a lot more (one was bleeding a little from it), so I got him in to our vet. Dr. L. checked them and the one I thought was much bigger had only grown 1 cm, so she wasn’t really concerned about that. But his poking at them wasn’t good because if he kept it up, there was a good chance he’d get one or both infected eventually. We also did an HT Vista scan on them. It basically uses heat to determine whether a tumor is cancer or not. It sends a heat signal through the mass and compares it to known results. The test is done in-office, results are immediate, and it doesn’t cost a leg and a tail. It’s used for dermal and subcutaneous masses. Both surface and one subcu mass she found while prepping him for the scan came back as benign, which was a relief, since mast cell cancers tend to metastasize to the lungs. (We did an x-ray when she first looked at them last year and the lungs were clear.) Still, the recommendation was to remove them since they did seem to be bothering him now. That surgery was done on Valentine’s Day.

I brought him home Wednesday afternoon, with instructions to check the incisions daily and call if any sign of infection started showing (redness, excessive swelling, discharge). And he was to be on leash at all times outside at potty time. No running, playing, or excess activity. And in an Elizabethan collar until his recheck appointment this week. He tolerated the collar pretty well, but did not like that he couldn’t run and play with Tucker as usual.

Everything was going well (I thought) until Saturday, when I noticed the incision on his leg looked redder than it had before. Oh, yeah, was it ever! He’d pulled the whole incision open. Not just a stitch or two. Nope, you could see the whole length of it (not all that big, but still) open. It was after noon and I know the office isn’t open all day Saturday, but I called with crossed fingers. They were about to close, but the vet on duty said since we are only about 10 minutes away, he’d stay and check him out. (Thanks, Dr. E!) So, loaded Lambeau into the car and off we went.

About an hour later, we are home again. Lambeau with 14 staples to close the incision, a course of antibiotics, and confined to his crate for a week. I did set up the X-pen we had so it fits snugly around his doggy bed for confining him. It’s better than the crate, especially since he has to be in it a week. He has room to move a little, turn around, sit, and rearrange without bashing the e-collar on the crate sides. He’s okay with it. Whines a little at night when we are watching TV since that’s when he always curls up on the sofa, often right next to me. But climbing up and down is probably the last thing he should be doing now. I do take him out on leash to potty, and we take a slow walk around the yard to let him stretch his legs a bit. He hates watching Tucker run all over, though. I feel sorry for him, but he’s got to heal. The shaved area you can see is the one at the base of the tail. That one is healing very nicely. Whew!

And, not to be left out, Tucker decided on Saturday evening that he didn’t want to wait a minute for me to get his food ready and he went after the cat’s. (Guinness has an automatic feeder.) While Guinness was still eating. Tucker learned about bothering the cat while he is eating. He got a faceful of murder-mittens. Not bad, but a couple spots of blood on his muzzle. I cleaned them just to be sure, but it barely broke the skin. He’ll live. And maybe not try to be so greedy in future.

So, it was a week of dealing with pets, and not a lot else. But they are worth it and things should settle back to normal in a week or so. Drink your water. Eat a vegetable. Get outside and refresh. Be nice to one another.

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My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.

There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here