It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Ends Up In A Cone...

**I'm including images of wounds so if you don't like to see that sort of thing, you may not want to read this post**

The night before Miguel and I left for Hawaii Emma got into a terrible mess. I let the dogs out around 9 PM to go to the bathroom one more time before bed. We have a fence so I just open the door and let them run out to do their business in our overgrown backyard. Almost immediately we heard Emma yelp - loudly. Her distressed yelps continued (Miguel and I thought she was possibly in a fight with an animal) so Miguel and I ran outside to see what the problem was. It was pitch black and we couldn't see much until Emma ran towards us.

I honestly cannot describe how terribly gruesome a mess Emma got into. She ran over a rusty, metal shard and for lack of a better description scalped her chest open. She scalped about 8 inches of skin off her chest and belly and exposed her muscles and insides. When I first saw her skin hanging off her body, reaching the ground and her bloody insides, I was in complete shock and starting dry heaving. Thank God Miguel had just returned from LA that night and was able to take charge and spring into action! Miguel grabbed a towel, wrapped it around Emma and 'held her together'. We rushed to the only ER Vet in Savannah. Neither of us had shoes on and I was in my pajamas. We didn't have a very good experience with the vet here. Basically all they could do was bandage Emma up and suggested we go to Charleston for better care. Miguel and I ended up driving through the night to take Emma to Georgia Veterinary Specialist in Atlanta. The care Emma received in Atlanta was so much better than here in Savannah.

This is the piece of metal we believe Emma caught herself on. I took this picture after we had bent it down. It was originally sticking straight up. 

 Left: Some blood on my feet (I took this picture at the ER vet in Savannah while Emma was being bandaged up) Right: Blood stains on my car seat cover. 

Emma all bandaged up for the car ride to Atlanta

Long story short, Emma had surgery to remove the skin she scalped, to repair a torn muscle and to stitch up her belly. We were very thankful that she didn't end up needed skin grafts. Emma was at GVS for about 4 days and then a friend of my moms from Adopt-A-Golden Atlanta, Katie, picked her up and took her to my old vet in Atlanta, Duluth Animal Hospital. Emma stayed there until we got back. They changed her bandages and helped her during her recovery. I am so thankful for Katie and for GVS.

The first week Emma was home she was pretty pathetic and on lots of pain meds. I literally had to pick up her water dish to allow her to comfortably drink. She had to wear a shirt over her wound and the cone of shame to keep from licking. She even came to work with me one day!

Emma with her shirt and some of her meds.

Emma at work with me

After we had been home for a week I took Emma to the vet to remove her stitches. Emma did so well. They removed a ton! Poor puppy was torn up so bad! It was a little alarming to see how many stitches she had. They couldn't remove all of them because some were under a scab - when they removed the skin back in Atlanta they pulled extra skin on her stomach and stitched it together. However, there wasn't enough skin to completely cover everything so they had to leave a triangle area to scab over and heal itself. 

This is the first time I really looked at the scar. Kinda hard to see because the flash was so bright, but the wound is shaped in an upside down Y. The top of her chest where it is the brightest is also sewn together. 

Emma had been healing pretty well and getting back to her normal self. She was off pain meds after she got her stitches out. However, the past two days I've noticed Emma licking at her chest and when I checked her wound I realized it had started to re-open and had been oozing. I removed the little shirt Emma had been wearing and saw that it was wet with stuff and it removed some of the scab. I washed the shirt and we put Emma's Cone of Shame back on.

Emma, today, with her wound oozing. 

Miguel and I were really worried about Emma so I called the vet this morning to see if we needed to do something about the oozing etc. The vet said we had better bring her in just to check it out. Of course the vet didn't have an open appointment until noon, but what can you do? So we waited the morning out cleaning up after Jack who decided today would be an excellent day to get a stomach bug.

Haha, poor Emma trying to stick her head out the window with the cone of shame on!

I don't know why the vet made an appointment at noon, I sat in the waiting room for 30 mins because all the vets "went to lunch". Poor Emma was freaking out the entire time. She has reason to not like the vet I guess. Especially after the last month.

After we finally got into the examination room I had to wait again. That's when I noticed that there were cotton balls in a jar labeled Tongue Depressors. It bothered me so I took a picture. 

Emma began to freak out even more in the examination room and started trying to climb onto my shoulders and under my legs even before the doctor came in.

Pouts for Emma as she tries to get on my lap.

What dog? There's nothing to see here.

Somehow the vet managed to find Emma even though she hid herself so well!

I'm really glad I took Emma to the vet. They ended up cutting the scab off her wound. They said the flesh underneath looked good though. They gave us some topical medicine and told me that we have to clean her wound twice a day with Betadine. They re-filled her antibiotics and said we need to take her back in in two weeks to see how she is progressing. The wound looks a lot better after the scab was removed.

I am really ready for this whole ordeal to be over. As is Emma, I'm sure. We are over the expense of all this too. Pet Insurance would be wise. Oh well. I'm just thankful that Emma is healing and that we live in a day and age that we can help our fur-babies bounce back from an accident like this. 

I saw this picture on the internet the other day and thought it was funny and appropriate:

Puppy Crutches?

Emma and I have spent the morning at the vet. Unlike Jack who thinks the vet is a great opportunity to make new friends and investigate all sorts of interesting smells, Emma chooses to have panic attacks. So basically I spent the last hour on the floor of the vet trying to comfort a very upset dog while at the same time gallons of dog saliva and pounds of tiny black dog hairs collected all over my clothes.

Yesterday Jack and Emma were rough housing and Emma ended up hurting her leg. For the past 24 hours she hasn't put any weight on it and has been hobbling around like a three-legged dog. Actually, Emma is pretty impressive and agile with only three legs, but I'd still prefer her to have four working legs!

Emma protested to the vet in every way. She whined and whimpered so much that it brought tears to my eyes and gave the vet a very hard time trying to determine where exactly it hurt on her leg. We ended up having an X-ray taken of her leg and paw. Thankfully there are no breaks. The vet has Emma on some anti-inflamatories for the week to help the swelling and pain go down. He also told Emma to "take it easy". If anyone knows a good way to explain this to Jack I'd be eternally grateful... =)

I've put a blanket down on the couch and let Emma get up there to rest. It seems to be the only solution I've come up with so far to separate the dogs. In theory they know they're not allowed on the couch so Jack should leave Emma alone up there...

... unless you go to grab something from the other room and come back to this...

Puppy Updates

I feel like I haven't blogged about the dogs in a while so here are some updates about what has been going on recently.

Emma and Jack are getting along great as always. They are so happy to have each other and watching them play together really does bring so much joy to my heart! I miss my one on one cuddle time with Emma (Jack doesn't like to share attention) but I know they are so much happier playing together.

A couple of weeks ago I took both dogs to a local pet store to get caught up on all the vaccines. There were so uber excited to go out and see other people and other dogs, oh my! However, after taking both dogs by myself, I don't think I'd ever do that again without Miguel. What a mess! Jack especially was a handful. He wanted to say hello to EVERYONE by jumping on them. This is not allowed, obviously, but he hasn't quite learned that yet. To complicate things more I was using a connected leash so Emma was pulled with Jack wherever he decided to lunge at the moment. Emma did not like this because she was more interested in trying her very hardest to eat the cats that were there.

 

Notice how twisted the leash is...

Jack did just fine with his vaccines. He wagged and licked the vet and technician. Emma, however, struggled and struggled and struggled. She was not happy camper!

Jack's favorite thing has to be riding in the car! If we ever pick up our keys or make a noise that sounds like it might be keys being picked up he dashes over to you and looks up with those big brown eyes, wide smile and wagging his tail a million miles per hour! Sometimes when Jack is being stubborn and doesn't want to come inside when we are calling him, we will open the car and let him jump in just so we can catch him to bring him inside =) Emma likes the car as long as we stay off the highway and are going for short trips. They both try to help us drive if the car windows are up.

 

If we are going on long trip Jack ends up sleeping most of the way, but Emma freaks out! We have to keep her in the backseat but she tries her hardest to get up in the drivers lap. So much so that she will stand on Jack if he sits on the left side. =)

Poor Jack ;)

Emma is so bad on long car rides that we finally had to get a prescription for her. We tried over the counter dog anti-anxiety pills,  Benadryl, and Dramamine but nothing worked. This stuff works much better. Poor Emma! She really tries her hardest to keep her eyes open, but it definitely is a struggle! She looks so stoned! Haha! Bless her little heart!

So funny story about Jack and the car. I so wish I had a picture to accompany this story! Miguel ran to the post office to pick up a package before Christmas and took the dogs with him in the car. We always roll up the car windows so the dogs can't get out... because some dogs (Jack, of course... it's always Jack) have been known to jump out. While Miguel was standing in the long holiday line at the post office, a woman ran in and said, "Someone's dog is climbing out a car." Miguel thought to himself, "It can't be my dogs because my windows are rolled up". Then the woman announced that the dog was climbing out the sunroof of a cream colored car. Miguel dismissed this because his car is white not "cream". But once they started describing the dog Miguel thought it would be best to go out and just make sure it wasn't Jack. When Miguel got out to the parking lot he was greeted by Jack who was standing on top of the car with a confused look as he was contemplating the best way to get down. =) I just laugh at that image! Miguel put Jack back in the car, shut the sun roof and went back into the post office to a round of applause from all the waiting customers! Jack is so silly! I love that puppy!

Like I said earlier in this post, Emma and Jack are best friends, but Jack does not like to share! Emma used to sleep on her doggie bed every night. Then It turned into sharing it with Jack:

Then it turned into Jack and Emma sorta still sharing...

 

 

But now Emma sleeps under the bed...

 

Haha, poor thing! I just think it's so cute that she sleeps under the bed. She always like to be under even when she was a puppy. And of course now Jack has returned to putting himself to sleep in his crate. I guess the dog bed has lost its appeal now that Emma doesn't care to sleep there anymore. 

Well that's all I can think of dog-wise at the moment! Hopefully Jack will calm down some in 2012, but I won't love him any less if he doesn't! Fingers crossed though! ;)

Late Night Trip To The Vet

Last night we had a bit of a crisis. Miguel and I had just finished dinner and we were watching a tv show when Emma came over to us and put her head on our laps. Thats when I noticed her right eye was almost completely swollen shut and the white part of her eye was completely bright red! I, of course, freaked out completely. I immideately wanted to scoop her up and take her to the vet. Miguel, being more rational, suggested we call the vet first. The vet told us to give her some benadryl and then wait 30 minutes to see if the swelling went down. After half an hour the swelling did go down some but her eye was still really red and her 3rd eyelid looked all funky compared to her left eye. 

I did end up taking her to the emergency vet around 9 pm. Emma was not too happy to be there. She was already feeling weird from being drugged with the benadryl and then the vet and vet tech started messing with her eye and she was having NONE of it! The vet pointed out the her eye was bloody and she even had some dried blood under her eye. So they started examining her right away. First the vet just looked in her eye with a light. Emma did okay with that since it wasn't invasive in any way. Next they put a bright, neon green dye in her eye to see if her cornea was scratched. Emma didn't take that too well. Luckily her cornea wasn't scratched. Following the dye the vet dilated her eye, rinsed and washed it out, and then attempted to lift up her 3rd eyelid to see if there was a foreign object in there. Well Emma put up a HUGE fight. She is sooooooo strong and determined! The vet and vet tech had to really struggle to hold her down. All three of us got injured trying to hold her still. After about 8 minutes of struggle the vet decided it just wasn't going to happen so they just rinsed her eye out again really well. 

The vet gave us some antibiotic eye drops that I'm supposed to give to Emma 4 times a day... too bad I don't have six arms to hold her down to do that... 

When we got home Emma was exhausted and didn't put up any fuss when we put the cone of shame on her. Jack was very interested in her cone and in how she smelled after returning from the vet. Miguel and I felt so bad for her that we let her sleep in the bed with us last night. She slept so hard. Poor thing! 

I didn't get a picture of her eye before we went to the vet because that was the last thing I was thinking of, but here is a picture of her when we got back home and she was sporting the cone of shame. You can see her right eye is all the way shut. =( 

This morning her eye is back to its normal shape and color! Thank God! Poor Emma doodle! I'm supposed to keep her from digging and playing rough with Jack for about a week... don't know which will be more tough, that or giving her the eye drops...

Here are some shots of Emma rocking her new look:

Bop on the Nose, Oh No!

The dogs and I had quite an adventure last week when I was visiting my mom in Atlanta. It was very chaotic with four dogs in one house. At the beginning of the week the dogs were all stressed out from the new situation. When Emma and Jack were playing something happened and they got in a real dog fight. It was really scary. I tried to break them up (which is apparently something you're never supposed to do) and Emma actually bit me too. I know it was an accident, but still, ouch! But I didn't get the bad end of it... unfortunately it was Jack's nose that got the most damage.  I didn't notice it was scraped until later that day. It looked like it hurt but Jack seemed fine. However, Friday night I noticed that his nose has swelled and he was sporting a rather large bump.

BEFORE

AFTER

I started to worry that maybe the scrape had become infected. So Saturday I took him to the vet. He was really excited to be there. He LOVED all the smells and meeting new people! The vet came in and they made me hold him while they shaved the hair down on his nose. Once they did that it was pretty scary to see how deep the scratch was. You could literally see the tooth mark. Ouch! Poor puppy! I also hated having to hold him while he squirmed and cried. In the end they gave him some pain meds and antibiotics. They told me if the swelling didn't go down he needed to come back and have some x-rays taken. Luckily, the swelling has gone down and it looks like we won't have to go back to the vet. Which is good news for Jackson, because it turned out that going to the vet was a very traumatic experience for him...

BEFORE being examined

AFTER being examined

Anyways, I'm just happy he's feeling better and I hope Emma doesn't ever snap on him like that again!

120 lb Rottweiler

Emma has been sick today. She wasn't feeling well to her tummy and was really struggling with her potty breaks. That's when I noticed she was bleeding... a lot. I immediately scheduled an appointment at the vet. Emma remembered her last time there and tried very hard to show me the door to leave. The vet tech came in and took her away to take a stool sample. The door shut behind them and next thing I knew I heard loud bangs, scratches of puppy nails on metal, and whining. After a few minutes of a loud struggle from behind the closed door, the vet tech and Emma reappeared. Emma made a mad dash for my legs.  The vet tech said once she tried to get the stool sample Emma turned from a 28 pound puppy to a 120 pound rottweiler! Emma did NOT like her messing around down there. Would you?

Emma stared at the door to leave the whole time, occasionally looking back at me to let me know that was the exit.

Next the vet came in and talked to me about her symptoms. They gave her a shot (which she also put up a mad struggle during) and tested her for parasites and other illnesses. The good news is that her tests came back A-OK. The vet thinks the bleeding is just secondary to her having diarrhea. We have two antibiotics to give her over the next couple of days and she should start to do better.

The hair left over from Emma's struggle with the vet and vet tech. She did NOT want a shot!

I am soooo thankful it wasn't something too serious. It was very startling to see Emma cause that much blood. It was also really hard seeing Emma struggle at the vet for the first time. Ah, it just breaks my heart. I wish she could understand that we were only allowing these things to happen to her in order for them to get fixed.

Ouch!

Ouch!!! Mom!!! Why are you letting these people do this to me?!?

I took Emma to the vet to start her on her flea and heart worm medicines. While we there I also had them clip her nails. Emma was really squirmy. She did not like having her 'nails did'.  On the very last nail she was so wiggly that the vet tech cut a little too much nail and Emma started bleeding pretty bad. She didn't seem to notice though. She was way more concerned with trying to wag her way up into the vet tech's lap and give her face kisses. Glad it didn't seem to faze her too much! 

Now, does anyone have any suggestions (besides a bark collar) on how to stop a puppy who barks at everything including the wind?

Emma Goes to the Vet for the First Time

Oblivious to where she is headed, Emma poses for a picture on the way to the car.

Emma has decided that sitting in the back seat of the car isn't "with" enough. She has started climbing up to lean on the center armrest or hopping up into the passenger seat next to me. I'm happy she is liking the car better. She happily jumps in as soon as I open the door.

The vet had two separate entrances for dogs and for cats. I've never seen that before and thought it was a really good idea!

Unlike all the other dogs in the waiting room, who were cowering under seats and attempting to hide behind legs, Emma didn't know to be scared of the vet. She strangled herself trying to greet everyone and play-bowed to all the dogs who stared back at her unsure of what to make of a excited puppy. I feel like I should apologize to my mom. I now have a glimpse of what it must feel like to be a mom with a screaming child in a grocery store. Emma barked her head off!! Nothing I did calmed her down or distracted her. I got many 'looks' from other patients parents.

Emma was so worked up. When we got in our examination room she was disappointed to find she and I were the only people there. I think she was expecting another room full of dogs to 'play' with or people to meet and wag at. She could hear the vet and technicians on the other side of the door and so stared and wagged at it while we waited. I doubt this will happen next time we go...

Emma is doing well! The vet said she is a very good girl. She weighs in at just under 18 lbs! Biggie girl!

Emma got real quiet after her examination. She caught on that, though she and the vet are friends, he does things to her that she doesn't like. She got two shots in her back legs and a syringe full of gel up her nose. Emma very much protested the nose gel and the vet looking at her teeth. But she was a good girl. She didn't bark or nip at the vet.

The vet was a little worried about her foot patches though. The doctor told us to finish her antibiotics and also gave us some medicated pads to wipe on her foot once daily. He said it should have been looking better by now.

Emma was really happy to be back home and quickly feel asleep. She had a very exciting morning.

While I was checking out, Emma started barking her precious, little head off again. I asked if the vet had any suggestions of how to control that and she suggested getting an empty bottle and putting pennies in it. Anytime Emma starts to bark, like when a neighbor walks by our window, we should shake the bottle. The idea is that, hopefully, she'll get the idea that barking is associated with an unpleasant noise. We'll see...