Lhasa apsos, cones on heads and grooming

 When Penny died, it took me four months to even think of continuing this blog, and for a while I just added the occasional post to keep it alive. And to keep Penny alive on the internet. (She's alive forever in our hearts.)

And then we made the enormous decision to bring another dog into our household. During the worst of the lockdowns here in Victoria in Australia, many people discovered the joy a dog can bring, so we had difficulty getting an older rescue dog. Given my age (not too young is what I'll say), it was a momentous decision to start over with a puppy.

But what joy she has brought us. 

And what a further education in living with a dog. I thought I knew so much about dogs, after fifteen years with one. Now I realise each dog is a new experience. Getting a lhasa apso puppy was a tribute to the fact that we thought Penny had been a lhasa.

Well, no.

Lhasas have special coats. Just because Penny looked like a lhasa does not mean she was one. The groomer warned us. 'Don't think this will be like caring for Penny. She didn't have a thick coat. It was fine and easily managed.'

Yep. She was so right. Peppa's coat is a whole new ballgame.

Recently she had an operation on her right front paw to remove a grass seed buried inside it. 

While the weather was good, sunny and dry, we coped. But once the winter rains set in, we didn't go so well. It eventually turned out that the bandaged foot had healed well, but had got wet under the bandage and needed more time to recover. So, the cone went back on. 

 

The dreaded cone... 

If you've seen the movie 'Up', you'll know it as the Cone of Shame. From now on, I'm going to call it the Cone of Messy Fur.

That darned cone made such a mess of Peppa's head and neck fur.

 

Here are the ears, the worst affected: 

 

In all the kerfuffle over the paw, we've missed out on our scheduled grooming session, and our lovely groomer is going on holidays, so I bit the bullet and decided I'd have to start getting her coat back in order. 

I'm rather pleased with the work I did on her ears. The first one 'only' took thirty minutes.

And then I started on the other ear - the left.

Another thirty minutes - after which it was time for a rest, each of us in her own way. Peppa in her crate, me on the computer.

I figure in another hundred hours we should have the whole coat looking good.

the saga of the paw continues

The results of the biopsy on Penny's sore paw came back and it turned out our vet had made a good diagnosis - she had a chronic infection, of unknown origin. Perhaps a trauma of some sort, perhaps from licking. The vet and I are both of the opinion it may have originally been some sort of trauma.

He took quite a big piece off her paw for the biopsy and thinks the surgery itself may help healing, because of the increased blood flow to the area.

All good...

On Tuesday she was doing well after the surgery, and went back to the vet to get the big, padded bandage off. He put a lighter bandage on it, and repeated the important instruction to keep the bandage dry. Human number two soon spotted the fact that Penny's limp was much worse.

How could this be?

Well, she went back to the vet today - and the bandage was putrid and damp! We have no idea how it got wet. It's quite a mystery.

Thank goodness human number two picked it up. Now Penny has no bandage, but has to suffer the cone of shame.





She wasn't too happy when she came home, but it's all worth it if the paw heals cleanly and quickly.



We've got one of the old-fashioned types of collars. I'd have liked to try the new one I saw on a recent post by The Portuguese Water Blog or the Kong EZ Clear Collar reviewed by Hound Girl.