Post-Op Pt. 1

This week has been slightly out of the ordinary. Monday morning, Bella had another new adventure which began with a ride in my vehicle. My vehicle is a little larger than her normal ride, aka Chassie's car. When she goes places in Chassie's car, there is normally a second person to keep her away from the driver and she has been able to ride in the front seat since she's just a puppy. We break the law, please don't tell Fairfax County. My vehicle has a large amount of area for her to explore compared to Chassie's car. Then there's the fact that Chassie had gone to work and there was no one else around to assist me when it became time for her car ride. Luckily, we had her first crate that has now been retired. I took the crate, put it in the back of my vehicle and strapped it down with two bungee cords. Well... don't tell Chassie, but it wasn't a very good tie down job. The first turn (out of the parking lot) I heard a crash from the back. I pulled off immediately and found the crate on it's side. Bella was perfectly fine, standing up on the side of the crate which I guess, technically, just became the bottom, looking at me. I put the crate back in it's correct position and adjusted the straps.  Back on the road, a little more aware, I continued on our journey.

We reached our final destination and as I opened the crate door, put the leash on her and let her out of the vehicle. She had no idea where we were or what we about to do. This evil guy just took her to the vet and it wasn't a fun vet visit. I took her to get spayed. It's a little earlier than normal for a puppy from my research. It seems the average age to get a puppy spayed is around six months. She just passed five months. There's a couple reasons we decided to do it at this point. The first was Chassie wanted to be sure we got it done before her first cycle. There was a constant buzz in my ear about if we were too late, there would be blood everywhere and I would be the one to clean up. The second was we had a break during the training classes. If we waited to do it when she turned six months, we would have to miss a week in the middle of the course. As it turned out, when we made the appointment with the vet, we thought that we might be missing the first class, though we miscalculated and we have two full weeks before our intermediate class begins.

Back to the big, traumatic event of the week. I dropped her off in the morning and Chassie and Roberta picked her up in the afternoon. I returned home to find a lethargic puppy. She got up to greet me, but plopped down at my feet shortly after. After that, I spent the evening going back and forth between PetCo and our house. It was an E-collar (Elizabethan collar) we were after. For those unaware, an Elizabethan Collar is the cone that goes around a dog's neck so they can't chew on themselves. Chassie stopped by the local PetCo before picking Bella up from the vet and purchased a large inflatable collar. The inflatable collar is the preferred choice for Chassie since she is well experienced with Draco. It turned out the large was too large and Bella would easily be able to get out of it. This was a little disappointing to Chassie.

I went back to PetCo to return the collar and get one that would fit. Chassie said that they had one medium size left when she was there earlier. She told me where to go to find these collars, but as I entered the store I must have only focused on the location of the fish, because I swear I looked through half the store. I found all of the potty training necessities (a few months too late) and all of the leads (which I now know are "leashes") and I even found the cat food and toys (I hate cats). Not to mention the grooming area, where they have dog shampoo that smells like apples, like that's necessary. As I made my way through the dog section on the second go round, I noticed the medical collars at the end of an aisle. I looked through the collar section, and could not find the medium size Chassie thought would be there. They did however have something called a "Cozy Cone" which was a softer version of the classic plastic e-collar. I grabbed the medium size, thinking that would be correct since the large of the other brand was too large and walked toward the counter. The sales associate asked if I had found everything ok, I responded with a "No. Not really." She asked what I was looking for and I produced the bag with the large inflatable collar and almost immediately she said, "The lab puppy. How is she?" I was a little taken aback, but she pulled out the medium collar from under the counter as I responded that she was "Sleeping off the trauma." She had saved it from earlier when Chassie could not decide on which size to take.

I returned home and we tried the new collar on. It was too small. Here is when we insert a c]omplete and total "go crazy" moment. If you know Chassie then you can see it without me explaining it. For those unaware and need a description, I'm always looking for new topics. The size difference between the two was amazing. The large was fairly big. I'm sure an adult dog would be able to handle it, but the medium was nearly two times as small. Guess where I'm headed again? Back to the PetCo. The girl that helped me before was at the counter and she is flabbergasted that neither of the two worked. She says something about attaching the e-collar to her regular collar and then disappears without allowing me to question her further. The phone enters my hand without much thought and I'm hoping Chassie answers this time. To my relief, she's expecting my call. Through a little bit of a discussion we decide that we'll take two collars and try them out since it's about ten minutes to close and we need to have a collar that will prevent Bella from getting to her stitches. I take the large inflatable one again, thinking that we'll try putting it through her regular collar, maybe that will make a difference and the medium "Cozy Cone." We'll return the other one, or so I think.

I get home and we try both of them out. The "Cozy Cone" won the duel. It seems to do the job, but I wish I had read the instructions a little better. The cone itself is a little too short. Her muzzle comes out just beyond the edge of the cone, which it is not supposed to do. Maybe we could have exchanged for a larger cone but we allowed her to explore outside with it on, which dirtied it up and then she chewed on the edges that first night in the crate. At that point, I accepted the fact that it was ours. It's done the job, which means that she has not been able to open up her stitches when she's been alone. Which to me means, she has not bled everywhere where I need to clean it up. Therefore, the "Cone" has done it's job.

All in all, I'm fairly impressed with how Bella has handled this traumatic event. We sprung it on her, she probably doesn't know the difference except that for a few days she didn't get her usual exercise. God bless her soul.