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.

Penny's poor sore paw

On Sunday, Penny cut her front paw while we were walking in the bush.

I guess we've been lucky this has never happened before. However, it did mean that I was unsure how to deal with it. First I washed the cut with salty water, a couple of times, then I bandaged it loosely. Which left the problem of how to go outside for toileting without getting the bandage wet. (We've had lots of rain lately, which you won't find me complaining about after the fifteen or more years of drought we endured.)

Well, that didn't work all that well. There are a couple of plastic bags lying somewhere in the yard, lost within minutes of our going out in the dark.

Today, when we came back to Melbourne, I decided to scout the Net for more information, and found some sites that were quite helpful. I was pleased that Betadine was recommended on some of them, as I've got Betadine spray. So I've sprayed it and put a fresh bandage on, and we'll see how things look tomorrow.

One recommendation that seemed sensible was to wrap only a couple of layers around the paw, because if the bandaging is too thick, the dog will notice it more, and therefore be more likely to lick at it. (I recall from Penny's previous biopsy bandaging how important it is to keep the bandage dry.)

This squidoo says we should rebandage the paw twice a day, so I guess I'll do that.

The Dog Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook says a fresh wound longer than half an inch should be sutured, but says if the wound is older than twelve hours, suturing is questionable. If I'd been in Melbourne I would have taken her straight to the vet to see if stitches would help. But we were too far away.

At the moment she seems to be comfortable, and in fact isn't even limping much. She's taking her weight fully on both front legs.

I'll call the vet tomorrow, to check whether I'm doing the right thing, and I'm going to ask about a recommendation by Julia Szabo on a dogster site, that the wound will heal faster if it is kept soft:

Then, to help speed healing, I applied some Buck Mountain Wound Balm, the same excellent ointment I used on my dog Tiki when he was fighting cancer. This stuff packs the triple healing punch of burdock, yarrow, and echinacea, and is a first-rate item to keep in the K9 first aid kit. Without some kind of ointment to keep the tissue soft, a wound takes longer to heal - and with the location of this wound, recovery speed really counts.

On looking at the Buck Mountain Herbal Gold site, I see that it is recommended for minor cuts and closed wounds, and that using salve on an infection that is not clean and dry might accelerate the infection, so I think I'll definitely ask for advice from the vet before doing anything other than keeping the wound clean and infection-free.

I might try using aloe vera, if the vet says it is important to keep the paw pad soft.