I gave Kira a sedative at bedtime last night in addition to her pain pills. It knocked her out so hard I couldn’t get her up to pee until 10 am. Even then I had to force the issue. She slept pretty much the rest of the day, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she didn’t seem too stressed out. Mostly calm and out of it.
Her leg is swollen, something I was warned about and should resolve in a week. She put a bit of weight on her leg this morning at potty time, but not the rest of the day. Her appetite is not great. She will eat a little dog food if I make it more interesting with some cheese or cold cuts. I’m not too alarmed. Camp was absolutely obsessed with food and the drugs would occasionally make him lose his appetite. I don’t want to acquire any bad, picky-eating habits, but I figure it is more important right now for her to just eat something, especially when she gets the upset-tummy pill. She is drinking normally. She has avoided the cone of shame for another day, probably because she was simply too zonked to lick.
I get my first COVID shot tomorrow morning. YAY! But it will be the first time she’s left alone. If tomorrow morning is anything like most of today, I won’t be too worried. I can always put her in the crate, but I kinda think, especially if I give her a sedative before I go, that leaving her under the dining table will be fine.
We got Kira almost three years ago, right before my cancer diagnosis.
She was kind of an impulse adoption. We always knew we’d get a second dog; we’re not meant to be a one-dog household. Camp loved other dogs (loooooved), and we thought he’d benefit from a sibling. We also always knew we’d adopt. Stuart had been combing the local rescues’ webpages for a while, but I was dragging my feet for whatever reason. If memory serves, every dog we liked the looks of and were good with other dogs weren’t good with cats. We had four cats at the time, so that was definitely an issue. Most likely I was just content with my nice simple life and wasn’t ready to upend it by adding a new dog to the mix.
Scout came home for a visit in April, and she was obsessed with us adopting a dog while she was here. I got caught up in the peer pressure, so I started looking at adoptable dogs too. There was a pittie-looking guy at the St. Matthews Feeders Supply via Kentucky Humane Society. Scout and Camp and I went that Friday afternoon to look at him, but he had an issue. I think he had a hold on him because of an illness or injury.
In the spot next to him was a year-old black lab-shepherd mix named Kira. She seemed friendly enough, rather sweet even, definitely more lab than shepherd. However we really were more interested in a pit or another pit mix. Can’t stress enough—a lab mix was not on my to-do list.
Camp had other ideas. The KY Humane rep brought Kira out to say Hello and she and Camp hit it off immediately. I called Stuart to tell him there was a nice doggie here and Camp seemed to like her. Not a shock, as Camp has never met a dog he didn’t love. I was expecting Stuart to say Hell Nah to a lab, but he wasn’t busy at work and he had dog fever longer than I had. He said he was on his way. Kira, we were told, was surrendered because her original owners didn’t have enough time for her and she spent 12 hours a day in a crate. She was given to friends who also didn’t have time for her, even though both owners said she was a good girl. I am, if anything, a sucker for broken toys. The idea of this sweet brown-eyed girl not getting the forever home she deserved killed me. Long story, short, we brought Kira home that day.
We immediately took her and Camp on a walk and out to dinner on the patio of an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. Scout, now that she had accomplished her mission, was back out with her friends. My first impression of Kira was that she had a strong bladder—girl could hold her pee forever. Also she was a puller. Such a puller that she was making herself cough. Well she kept coughing through the night and into the next day.
I took her to the veterinary practice that KY Humane runs and we learned she had a bad case of kennel cough. Poor girl. So she spent her first week with us sicker than sick. Fever, listless. Of course just after she recovered Camp started coughing. And right after that I found out I had breast cancer.
So much for my nice simple life.
Well, we all got better and our home was again a two-dog household. As it should be. It was that summer we learned Kira did not like other dogs. Like, at all. She was fine with Camp, but I wonder if the reason she didn’t show any reactivity toward him when they first met was because she was in the early stage of a serious illness. Or maybe she knew she would be spending a lot of time in that cage if she acted out. I wouldn’t be surprised—she’s whip smart. She’s also an attentive, anxious, sensitive honey and we love her.
So fast forward to now. Dr N called after surgery yesterday and said it went well. She had a chronic partial rupture in her right cranial cruciate ligament. They did a medial meniscus release and a tibia plateau leveling osteotomy. Basically they cut the knee apart and reposition it so the joint is stabilized. She regurgitated a bit of fluid, but the vet said it happens and she still had a trach tube in, so it shouldn’t be a problem. A small risk of pneumonia or esophageal irritation, but he wasn’t worried. He’d be calling between 10 and 11 the next morning to tell me how she did through the night and when she could come home.
This morning Dr N called at 8:47. He said Kira did not seem to be showing any ill effects from the regurgitation. He also said she was super stressed, shattered a baby gate in an overnight rampage, and we could come get her—the sooner the better. Stuart had already planned on taking a long lunch to help me pick her up. He came right away.
$4K* later, we had our girl back. We also picked up Camp’s ashes.
*Y’all, if you want to pay for baby’s new shoes, go into the manufacture and sale of surgical plates and screws.
The drive home was fine. Stuart sat in the back seat with her to keep her from freaking out. Typically on any given car ride, she dances around the backseat like she’s a lip sync assassin. I was worried that she would hurt herself, but she was calm. Mostly busy bothering the bandage on her front leg where the IV had been placed.
We got her home and settled in her new spot. I had moved the dining table around and set Scout’s unused mattress underneath. It’s a comfy, confined area (her leash is tied to a table leg) and hopefully she will be relatively content to stay there. It will be her main living space for two months. She for the most part rested comfortably most of the day. I can tell she’s not happy, but she’s hardly the drama llama that Camp was. She had to be bribed with ground beef and cheese to eat her dog food, but her carprofen can cause stomach upset and so the food boycotting that she’s been doing since Camp died would not fly.
I took some photos of her wound, so that we can monitor how it’s healing. The wound is like Frankenstein Crazy Horror Movie and her leg is quite swollen, but oddly it doesn’t make me upset to look at it. I guess I was expecting worse. Maybe after all the trauma of epilepsy, something that doesn’t cause electrical storms in the brain seems like no big deal. The sutures are internal so there’s nothing to chew, and I’m hoping we can avoid the Cone of Shame. She’s on three different medications, two pain pills and a sedative. She goes back for a recheck in two weeks, then imaging six weeks later to see how the bone is healing. I’ve been assisting her walking by using a towel as a sling for her back end, just to take some pressure off her good leg. It is really common for the non-surgical leg to get fucked up because it bears all the weight during the healing process. So the less time she spends on her feet the better.
Currently she isn’t putting any weight on her bad leg, but of course, as expected, she thinks she can freely move around the house. She’s mostly being cooperative so far as I limit her to potty in the yard and chilling under the table. But you all this dog has no chill. This will not last. I’m just wondering how long it will take for the boredom to remove the luxury of her cooperation.
Day One in the books. I am going to spend the night with her on the mattress under the table. Not expecting much to be different tomorrow; hopefully nothing worse. Some pix:
Veni, Vidi, Dormivi 