Accidental Lurcher
I've been really quiet lately because Still Not Enough Sleep, and now Brad is catching that too.
Chance ran into something Friday that dinged him up in a way that looked really superficial, and then after he ignored it all day other than some introductory licks, he enlarged it Saturday, and it's in a bad enough spot that it needed stitches (because it was liable to tear further; it's at a pretty stretchy spot on his side, on a very flexible and stretchy dog.) I am having all sorts of angst about being the worst monkey evar, because we just got him and I have let him get dinged, and trying to remind myself that he has done this before, that lurchers *do* this, to the point where the lurcher faq recommends getting a first aid kit as one of your essential items along with a leash that will not hurt your hands when suddenly jerked (from all the lurching) and a very cozy bed (which I had figured out for myself given his love of couches.)
One of our mistakes was not getting proactive sedatives after the vet said "we'll give you sedatives if he needs them" as he went home Saturday night. Guess when we found out he needed them! Yup, an exciting weekend, and he popped a stitch, but he's been in again today and he is doing great despite this and despite being too active, and we've been issued a nice big bottle of sedatives so he will lie down and let himself heal, and dosing instructions anywhere from greyhound metabolism (very sensitive to medication) to border collie (may need to drug him to the eyeballs) so we'll start him slow and see how he does.
His character has been incredible throughout. He is currently wearing a cone, a t-shirt (to prevent scratching up his side) and a booty (ditto), and will put up with being wriggled into all of these things with immense good grace. He still thinks the vet is mostly fun except for getting his temperature taken, and it's hard to blame him for disliking that bit. From his point of view we are probably still a pair of random monkeys who kidnapped him from his *real* monkey family without even having a substitute toddler to crawl all over him, and yet he is mostly doing the usual: mugging for tummy rubs and thumping his tail for mooore loving even when he's still woozy from the light anesthesia he needed for the stitches, and mostly not even needing to be pilled with his plethora of daily pills, because he will take them nicely if they are wrapped in butter. Also: patrolling for raccoons at 2am. That's Very Important, you know! We are hoping the sedatives will get him better sleep through the 2am raccoon visit for a week while he heals (and, selfishly, us too.)
The best part is where I kept thinking, 'At least he's not a lurcher. Those sound really hard.' And then looking it up, after meeting a McNab (border collie lab, white-marked up in such a way that he could be Chance's half-brother), and realizing that... we have a lurcher. Which is a gazehound bred with another breed of dog, usually a working dog like a collie, or a terrier(!), in order to do things like say modify the greyhound's natural indolence into something with more drive and endurance. I'm now entertaining myself imagining a terrier lurcher. Those sound really hard!
We are in for a *lot* here. But oh my is he a sweetie.
Chance ran into something Friday that dinged him up in a way that looked really superficial, and then after he ignored it all day other than some introductory licks, he enlarged it Saturday, and it's in a bad enough spot that it needed stitches (because it was liable to tear further; it's at a pretty stretchy spot on his side, on a very flexible and stretchy dog.) I am having all sorts of angst about being the worst monkey evar, because we just got him and I have let him get dinged, and trying to remind myself that he has done this before, that lurchers *do* this, to the point where the lurcher faq recommends getting a first aid kit as one of your essential items along with a leash that will not hurt your hands when suddenly jerked (from all the lurching) and a very cozy bed (which I had figured out for myself given his love of couches.)
One of our mistakes was not getting proactive sedatives after the vet said "we'll give you sedatives if he needs them" as he went home Saturday night. Guess when we found out he needed them! Yup, an exciting weekend, and he popped a stitch, but he's been in again today and he is doing great despite this and despite being too active, and we've been issued a nice big bottle of sedatives so he will lie down and let himself heal, and dosing instructions anywhere from greyhound metabolism (very sensitive to medication) to border collie (may need to drug him to the eyeballs) so we'll start him slow and see how he does.
His character has been incredible throughout. He is currently wearing a cone, a t-shirt (to prevent scratching up his side) and a booty (ditto), and will put up with being wriggled into all of these things with immense good grace. He still thinks the vet is mostly fun except for getting his temperature taken, and it's hard to blame him for disliking that bit. From his point of view we are probably still a pair of random monkeys who kidnapped him from his *real* monkey family without even having a substitute toddler to crawl all over him, and yet he is mostly doing the usual: mugging for tummy rubs and thumping his tail for mooore loving even when he's still woozy from the light anesthesia he needed for the stitches, and mostly not even needing to be pilled with his plethora of daily pills, because he will take them nicely if they are wrapped in butter. Also: patrolling for raccoons at 2am. That's Very Important, you know! We are hoping the sedatives will get him better sleep through the 2am raccoon visit for a week while he heals (and, selfishly, us too.)
The best part is where I kept thinking, 'At least he's not a lurcher. Those sound really hard.' And then looking it up, after meeting a McNab (border collie lab, white-marked up in such a way that he could be Chance's half-brother), and realizing that... we have a lurcher. Which is a gazehound bred with another breed of dog, usually a working dog like a collie, or a terrier(!), in order to do things like say modify the greyhound's natural indolence into something with more drive and endurance. I'm now entertaining myself imagining a terrier lurcher. Those sound really hard!
We are in for a *lot* here. But oh my is he a sweetie.