My Travels With The Skinny White Dog and Her Brother: I Didn't Suspect This Could Happen

Hey hi everyone :-) Hope everyone is having a great week.

Everything is going o-k-a-y here...actually good, when thinking about situations in the world. But it has been a tiring week. Harvey pickled his back. After seeing a picture the vet showed me, I am sure it was when he was having a great time playing with Otto – doing the tug of war thing, but the whipping back and forth caused a disc to rupture in his back. I feel very fortunate because the vet said many dogs lose all feeling and ability to walk for several weeks while it heals. Harvey has just had severe pain when being touched ANY place on his body. The first couple days he just stood to go to the bathroom and then laid back down in a small area I made for him in the kitchen. Now he does walk around but is wobbly and weak. As the disc heals the vet says the symptoms will alleviate. It is a big adjustment for him because we were walking over two hours a day. So even though he can't walk right now he cries and whimpers to go, so I decided our walks would become strolls. I put him in the big buggy I have and push him along the route. He does seem to understand though, because he waits for me to pick him up to get in the buggy or out of buggy rather than jumping like he used to. Even though jumping is forever out of his life due to the risk of re-injury, the vet said the goal is to get the blood vessels healed around the disc so that we can be walking our long routes again. ...Pearl is doing okay with it. The first few days I had to lock her in the bedroom because she would hop all over him wanting to play and he couldn't get up. Now with the stroller, when she gets tired she hops in the grocery basket underneath the main buggy and looks like she is in heaven as we stroll along. Meanwhile I have built ramps in my place so that Harve can start walking around my place again. The one off the back deck area was the most challenging because after I built it I watched out the window as Harvey went out the door. Instead of using the ramp he did a full blown leap off the edge of the deck. Heart sink. So I took our gogo pen for traveling and boxed the deck in with it and left only the space where the ramp is open – now no choice to go up and down. So hopefully things will heal quickly. He is on Tramadol and Metacam to control the pain and making the swelling on the spine go down. For the first couple days it was breaking through and I found him laying just absolutely vibrating with pain and his eyes looking very scared, day and night – I would just massage him until the pain meds kicked in. But now they seem to have kicked in full force. In 10 days we will start to wean him off and see how he does.

One thing I learned though, is that dogs can still sense their toe nails being cut even when they are high. I got the idea that when Harvey was sleeping on his drugs, which are very strong, I would use the opp to cut his nails. Will have to wait for assistance. Even in a stupor he knew what was going on. :-(

….So as you can see this has pretty much consumed my life this week with no tons of other stuff to report. :-/ We had one nice day of weather, and another day that made me think the second coming of Noah's flood had arrived. The WT studies have been particularly good lately, and I am looking for ways at work to encourage ones to think about the Bible.

Oh, there is something I did different a couple weeks ago. Mom and I went downtown and painted on the street corners. Mom of course is very good, and I was there basically for the excellent cookies and sandwiches she brought along. I did produce something, but a little too scary to post. :-) Anyway, here are a couple pics of that too. And there is a pic of the patient too. I plopped him on his pillow and gave him his squirrel. He can lick it for hours. He was very good and laid there and watched me barbecue.