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.

those darned lipomas scare us

For about six months we've been worried about a lipoma in Penny's neck. We tried to be optimistic about it, but our local vet thought he should take it out. However, he decided that because it was so close to her carotid artery, he should stop the operation and we should wait and see what it did.

It's been simmering in our minds as a generalised anxiety, and when I took her to the vet yesterday to talk about her cough, of course he also re-examined her lipoma and thought it was time to consult a specialist surgeon. (We've been going to our local vet each month, BTW, to keep a check on it.)  I was concerned that it might be pressing on something in her neck and making her cough.

We were fortunate to get a specialist appointment for today.

Off we went, Penny most concerned that her worst fears had finally come true and her humans had forgotten to feed her. Of course, it was only because the specialist centre told us not to give  her food in case they operated.

Well, they did. And it was great news. The lump was a simple lipoma, not invasive, as everyone who examined it previously thought was possible.

And now she's home, having got rid of this worrisome growth. She has four more lumps that we know of,  but the surgeon examined them and said it should be okay to leave them alone.

When she arrived home, she was tuckered out, but managed to make her way to the kitchen when she heard dinner being prepared.

I cooked up a nice bowl of soft-boiled rice, carrot and chicken, and we gave her a small serving.
(Yes, you'll notice I burned the pot in all the stress of the moment, but her meal was not burnt.)

She tucked into the delicious meal and even had the energy to check around the outside of the bowl to make sure she hadn't spilled any.

During the evening we fed her the rest of the meal, in two separate serves. She certainly hasn't lost her appetite so far.

Now it's a matter of keeping her comfortable and checking she doesn't scratch at the stitches. She didn't after the last operation on this lipoma, so here's hoping.

Oh, and the cough... well, she had so many (expensive!) preparatory checks today that we now know there is some bronchitis, so she'll continue on the doxycycline and we'll hope the bronchitis will clear up.

terrifying lumps and worrying times

I haven't had the heart to blog recently, because we've been frightfully worried about a lump in Penny's neck. But we've just had good news. Well, sort of good...

When we noticed the lump, we thought it might be yet another lipoma. (She has three or more, now, but we don't intend to put her through the trauma of surgery unless necessary, so we're simply observing them.) There are lots of sites on the internet with information about how common lipomas are in older dogs. This is one site, and it suggests that all lumps need to be investigated before deciding on a watch-and-wait approach.

However, we - and the vet - thought this lump felt strange, so even though a needle aspiration seemed to indicate it was a cyst with some infection in it, he suggested surgery to remove it. We agreed.

Penny started on antibiotics to settle the infection and duly had her surgery. On the day, we waited for the phone call to say she was fine. But when the phone call came, the vet nurse suggested we make an appointment to talk to the vet as we collected her. Little alarm bells went off, so both her humans went together, to give each other moral support.

The long and the short of it was that the vet had found the lump sitting around a major blood vessel, so he stopped the surgery, having taken a piece off the lump. It was sent off for a biopsy and we waited...

We kept Penny beside us every moment of the first couple of days, to check she didn't scratch at the stitches, which pretty much she didn't.

She even got to sleep beside one of her humans, which doesn't normally happen. Like the Princess and the Pea, she reclined on a tower of soft mats.

Today we've learned that the part biopsied is a lipoma, and, to use the vet's words in the reassuring phone message he left for us, basically 'harmless' and 'benign'.

But it's still beside that blood vessel - the jugular - and it showed two different results in testing, lipoma and cyst.

I called in to discuss it with the vet, and was impressed with the amount of time he spent explaining to me what the situation is. We'll be keeping an eye on it, checking it every month to see if it is growing. I asked if it might grow inside where we can't check it, but the vet said it will grow out, if at all. He said not to check it more frequently than once a month, because we might become too accustomed to it and not notice a change.

Here's hoping all will be well.

After the stitches came out

Sue, from the Portuguese Water Blog, added a comment on my last post saying that Penny's swelling was probably fluid. That's what our vet said, also. He said it would be mostly gone by yesterday - which it was. Aren't vets amazing? I would have said it would take another week for such a big swelling to go down.

Here's a picture of it yesterday, after our first proper walk in more than two weeks:

It's a little swollen, but basically gone. And, hooray, the stitches are out at last.

We had a lovely short walk at Clifton Hill, in the winter sunshine. We used to walk about an hour a day at least, briskly, but for this first outing we simply strolled around for half an hour.

swelling after lipoma surgery

I'm glad Penny is going back to the vet tomorrow morning, because the stitches around her lipoma surgery don't look too good. (If our vet were open on a Sunday, I'd have taken her there today.)

For a couple of days now we've thought the spot was swelling, but today it's more obvious than it was.

Penny lying on her back, the swelling obvious after her lipoma surgery.

The swelling after the lipoma surgery looks horrible when she's standing.

A couple of things are reassuring, and help us to keep the worry at bay (until tomorrow morning!). One is the fact that Penny seems fine. Here she has taken herself outside this morning to enjoy the winter sunshine, the first we've seen in days.

Secondly, a look around the internet seems to show that this kind of swelling is not unusual, in humans or in dogs, after a lipoma is removed.  Most sites say it will resolve, even if it takes a long time. (I sure hope hot.) One recommends hot compresses.

Here's a short clip of a similar swelling on a man's back. 

I got brave and watched a video of a lipoma surgery. I only gagged once! It was amazing to see the surgeon lift out the lipoma in its own little sack of skin. Now I understand what my vet meant when he said they got it all and it was intact. 

Here's another vet talking on YouTube about fatty lipomas. Very informative and interesting, but if you watch, be warned that suddenly you might be watching him standing with a huge ball of fat in his hand and cutting it off a dog! 

keeping a dog occupied after surgery

It's been a lo-ong week without our daily walks. Penny is still under vet's orders to take it easy, because of the stitches in her chest. He says that walking would put strain on the wound.

In order to pretend she's still going for walks, we often pop her in the car and take her to a nearby park to mooch around for five minutes. Yesterday we went to a local footy oval, and on the way home I noticed  a green space in our locality. After walking with Penny for eight years, I thought I would know them all, but here was yet another.

It seemed a rather unappealing place, to be honest.

But Penny found some interesting smells.

There was some lovely street art for me to admire while Penny looked around.

Penny's still not feeling good, I think, because after five minutes at each venue, she led the way back to the car. And look how low she was carrying her tail.

clipper causes skin rash after surgery for lipoma

I hope you'll forgive me for yet another post about Penny's surgery, but I thought our experience might be useful information for other people deciding whether to go for this option if their dog has a lump.

We visited the vet for a check-up today, four days after the surgery, and the wound looked swollen around the stitches, which the vet said was 'serum' around the wound. It might have been the result of Penny's activity since the operation. We'll take it even more quietly for a few days until the wound is not swollen-looking. On the other hand, Penny has mostly been resting and we only go out to toilet a few times a day, on lead.

The ghastly-looking redness around the wound was most likely a rash from the clippers used to remove her coat around the site for surgery. Here's the photo from a few days ago:

 and today it is much less sore-looking:

In this photo you can see that there is no stitch at one end of the cut. The vet said he left this open in case the wound needed to drain.

Whilst reading up  for this post, I've come across a really good article at The Kerry Blue Terrier Foundation, dealing with the question of whether or not to have surgery for a lipoma.

The article discusses the pros and  cons, gives lots of case studies, and talks about other possibilities than surgery, including:
watch and wait
no treatment
liposuction
injection of collagenaze
weight loss, diet and exercise
acupressure
herbal medicines
homeopathy (not much success reported)
aromatherapy

One thing I was glad to read was that modern anaesthesia means that it should be safe for even an older dog to undergo surgery for a lipoma. I must admit this was highest in my list of worries when  we opted for surgery.

post surgery for the lipoma

Penny's operation to remove a lipoma has given us peace of mind, and she appears to have bounced back from the anaesthetic, but these photos show there's still a price to pay.

I'll be glad when we've been back to the vet to check it is all healing okay. Two days to wait.

pain medication for dogs

Recently Hsin-Yi, in a post about health issues for older dogs, reported that Honey, her great dane, had a trial of pain medications for a week to see whether Honey's behaviour changed while on pain relief. Since Honey didn't show any difference in her level of activity and enjoyment of life, the vet and Hsin-Yi concluded that even though Honey is a senior dog and has some mild spondylosis, she is not in pain.

Hsin-Yi, writing as Honey, said:

It's not giving me any pain - my humans were worried about that so they asked the vet and they tested giving me painkillers for 1 week, to see if I suddenly changed my behaviour...but I didn't show any change at all. The vet said this shows that I'm not actually in any pain - which is very common in mild spondylosis - you just get stiff but no pain.

I hadn't heard of this type of test and I'm interested, given that Penny is now eight and has had surgery for a partial cruciate tear, at which time we were told she would most likely get arthritis later. She has been on a supplement called Glyde all her life, since the vet found a click in one of her elbows when she was just a puppy.

Yesterday Dr St Clair, whom I've posted about previously, has written an article about using medications to ensure our dogs are not in pain. 

One thing that jumped out at me in his article is the explanation of why dogs don't show pain  when they are at the vet. He says it's because their adrenaline level is up when they walk into the vet surgery. I've certainly been one of the many people who look in amazement at their dog and say, 'But she was limping at home!'

He also points out that dogs don't show pain as we do, so it's difficult to know whether they are suffering.

 I'm going to keep his advice in the back of my mind, and if I suspect Penny is hurting in her joints, I might do the pain-relief trial that he recommends  - and that Honey did.

physical therapies in the treatment of dogs

PetMD has a great article today on physical therapy for pets.

When Penny damaged her cruciate ligament, I searched for reliable information about what to do, and I would have loved to have read this article.

Eventually we settled on a traditional repair of her cruciate ligament damage, and were happy with the surgery, but the vets did not emphasise the necessity for follow-up therapy. However, from research on the Net we decided it would be helpful.

I'm glad we did, because I don't believe Penny would have recovered as well as she did, without the underwater treadmill, swimming and canine physiotherapy. We followed it up with a long period of home therapy, using exercises given to us by the canine physiotherapist, from Dogs in Motion. (And I'm excited to see that Dogs in Motion now has a blog!)

Dr. James St. Clair's home therapy booklet was a godsend also, and it became our bible for more than a year.

Penny still swims regularly, but looking back through my blog to compose this post has alerted me to the fact that perhaps we should also be doing ongoing home therapy. I'm going over right now to check out the Dogs in Motion blog.

so sad to hear of Honey's ordeal

I was going to post about our adventures with nesting blackbirds, but since I've read the troubles Honey the Great Dane is enduring, I don't feel like writing a light-hearted post. Honey's glaucoma has worsened suddenly and she will be having surgery tomorrow - an injection into the eyeball to hopefully deal with the problem, but to also make the eye sightless.

I'm thinking of you and Honey, Hsin-Yi and Paul. Good luck!

Penny digs without the pawz shoe to protect her foot

Well, Penny had a fabulous time at the beach today! I decided not to take my camera - not sure why - and of course there were heaps of wonderful shots I could have taken.

 I thought we'd try the trip without the protection of the Pawz shoes I'd bought - once again, I'm not sure why I made such a silly decision. I think it was because I wanted to see how she would go. Well, Penny surprised me by deciding, after racing around with the other dogs in Cindy's walking group, to dig a hole to China. She hasn't dug at the beach in years, and who would have guessed she'd give her surgery scar such a workout?

I grabbed my old phone to get a few shots of her:

 digging

sitting in her hole (yep, I know her head is missing! It was so sunny I couldn't see the screen of the phone. But the picture gives a bit of an idea of how deep the hole was.)

lying in her hole

She was happy!

And when we got home, her scar didn't look too good! At first we thought the whole thing was opened up, but on calmer reflection we've decided to wait until tomorrow evening to see if it is scabbed over. She's not licking it or attending to it in any way, so I don't think it is worrying her. We've wiped it a couple of times with antiseptic.

non-allergenic diets for dogs

It's been complicated living with Penny lately. Not only are we dealing with intermittent lameness due to her injured cruciate ligament and consequent recovery from surgery, but she's also been very much bothered by skin irritation.

Even though we generally adhere to a raw diet, we took our vet's advice to try a totally non-allergenic diet, a Hill's food called z/d. We just hate feeding her this, but have strictly stuck to it for five weeks now. (The vet wanted us to try at least six weeks, and friends have told us that's standard for giving allergens time to get out of a dog's system.)

One of the problems has been that Penny doesn't like the food all that much. She eats it, but looks longingly at what we eat.

Also, I haven't felt like using it as rewards, as it has no great value to her. So that's been another problem with her deterioration in walking nicely on lead and generally behaving well. As Honey's human often reminds us, it's necessary to keep training right through a dog's life.

But...

after all this time following the diet, I went to the vet to buy another bag of it last Friday, only to be told there's a supply problem and it's not available. I must say, I wasn't impressed, and went to other clinics to try to buy some. Eventually, having contacted eight clinics, I acknowledged that it didn't seem likely we could continue the therapeutic diet.

My own vet clinic had canned food, though - Hills' z/d cans. Lots of them. So I bought them, feeling as if we were sliding down the slippery slope to tooth problems and unhealthy diet.

The vet nurse told me it's possible to slice the canned food very thin and bake it in the oven, thus turning it into dry treats.

And Penny loves them!! Da da! Training begins again.

And, to top it off, the manager of our vet's other clinic had had the forethought to stock up on this food when she heard there were supply problems.

So, we're going to stick to the program for another few weeks and hope Penny's skin problems clear up.

increasing a dog's vocabulary

After watching more of the BBC television programme, 'The Secret Life of Dogs', I was amazed by the canine genius who has a vocabulary of more than three hundred words. Betsy can bring on command a huge array of named objects. And, if you watch the video clip, you will see that she can even conceptualise from a scale model of an object to the thing itself, and even from a photograph, which I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it on the BBC.

Now, Penny isn't a genius, that's for sure. But, until she had surgery on her cruciate ligament and we stopped most of her activities, she was using her brain for tricks, doggie dancing and training, every week, if not every day.

When we were told she needed to take care with the leg, we began to restrict her activities. We eventually resumed walking, and now swimming, but we forgot about the intellectual stimulation she needs.

So, it's back to training for Penny. Here's a video of our usual amateurish style of 'kitchen training'. We're challenging ourselves to increase Penny's vocabulary and I reckon by the time she's 110 (human) years old, she should know as many words as Betsy.

Penny meets some old friends in the Australian bush

On Saturday Penny finally returned to Cindy's walk-and-talk group after nearly six months' absence. It's now eighteen weeks since surgery, and we're gradually picking up normal life once more.

The day started with a quick dip in the little pool Cindy had provided.

First you wait in line for your turn.



Then Cindy gives you some personal attention.



And then you return the favor by shaking some nice cooling water onto Cindy.



And then it's off through the Aussie bush for a stroll.



(Apologies for the terrible video. It was hard to keep up with Penny, who was ecstatic to be back with the group.)

first bath after surgery

Last weekend, Penny had her first afternoon off-lead in the garden, a wonderful day for us all.

She enjoyed the warm sunshine and mooched around finding sticks while her humans tried to make inroads into the massive growth of weeds swallowing up our backyard since these wonderful rains began.

She enjoyed a roll in rotting wet mulch, resulting in such a ghastly smell that we had to give her the first bath since surgery.

twelve weeks after surgery!

Hooray! We've made it to the twelve-week mark after Penny's surgery. The surgeon said after this period we could 'start to return Penny to her usual activities' - whatever that means!

However, the physiotherapist says sixteen weeks is a safer length of time, so I'll go by her recommendation. When I look at this video of Penny walking in the underwater treadmill, I can see that she is still favoring her left rear leg.



So I guess it'll be a few more weeks of the treadmill and of staying on lead whevever she is out of the house. (However, I did let her walk beside me off-lead down a local lane today, because it is quiet and straight and not too interesting. It was so-o wonderful to have her walking free beside me.)

The vet nurse who supervises the treadmill says that the water takes seventy percent of the dog's weight, so the treadmill gives her a chance to walk steadily for fifteen minutes, and of course the warm water not only provides resistance and muscle-building capactiy, but it's also comforting for a sore or aching leg.

the beloved green mat returns

If you look at this clip of Penny settling down on her beloved old green mat, you'll understand why it has been hidden in the cupboard for the eight weeks since her surgery on her knee.



It had been brought out twice over the last few weeks and each time Penny terrified me by her enthusiasm for it. To her dismay it was snatched away each time and put on the shelf.

But I reckon, after eight weeks, it's time to let her enjoy it. That leg is certainly getting plenty of Passive Range of Movement exercise.

Here's an article I've just come across, by Greg Harasen, discussing the benefits of postoperative physical therapy.

Penny walked around a whole block today

Well, what a red letter day! Penny and I set off slow-ly heading down the hill to the end of our street and made it around a whole block.

Dr James St Clair says hill work is important for strengthening the quadriceps and hamstrings, which help support the knee, so I thought we'd better venture a little further today. Our house is on the top of a hill, with a gentle slope in one direction and a steeper slope in the other, so we took the gentle slope.

Penny can go at a slightly faster pace now and still put her weight on her injured leg, so we actually managed to go around in a circle and come home a different way, instead of our usual glacial pace to and fro in our own street.

One small step for a dog, one giant leap for canine-kind. Well, it was quite a lot of small steps, actually, but you get the idea...

Dr. James St. Clair's home therapy booklet is still free

Recently Dotty asked me how I had obtained the enormously helpful home therapy booklet produced by Dr James St. Clair and I wasn't sure how I got it, so I emailed him and he's replied with the links for the whole set of booklets.

I think this is one of the most amazing things available on the Net, actually, as it's packed with information that even the best vets and surgeons don't seem to give out - detailed timetables and instructions on how to look after your dog immediately after surgery for cruciate injuries, and how to continue the therapy in the following months.

Here's the list of sites for the different surgeries:
tplo surgery

tplo guide

tta guide

cruciate surgery

fho guide