Tag: rufus

One more vet appointment, one step closer on the Rufus Road To Recovery! I took Ru down to the animal hospital this afternoon to see what they think of his recovery from surgery 10 days ago. I thought the wounds were both healing well, but I’m no vet, so I kept my enthusiasm to myself. I was happy that even the assistants, after one look at his scars and stitches in the lobby (where they all came out to see him), beamed and said, “That looks great!”

The vet, too, was thrilled at Ru’s recovery. The wounds progressed well enough that he removed nearly all the stitches, leaving only 3 or 4 in at the two areas where the skin is still scabbed over and healing. These were near the center of both wounds, where the skin was too tight to stitch the sides together fully. He used a couple of dissolving stitches in those spots, but also left a few regular ones in place to reinforce the area near them.

We made an appointment for next Thursday to remove the rest of them, and the vet’s quite hopeful that it’ll be the last time we need to come around for a while.

He added that we can basically go back to regular activity, which is good, since Ru & I actually took his full 1.1-mile walk earlier in the day (he insisted!). If the weather’s cool on Sunday morning, maybe we’ll try bringing him up to the greyhound hike in Wawayanda.

On top of that, he doesn’t think there’s much damage Rufus can inflict on himself if I finally leave him on his own for an hour. So I may build up the nerve to do just that and let him enjoy the silence.

(Update: On second thought, the vet feels like we oughtta make sure he doesn’t lick at his wound too much, for fear of wearing away some of the scar tissue. So we’re gonna stay attached at the hip for a while more. And he’s way too conked-out after a 1-mile walk this evening for me to believe he’ll be in shape to handle Wawayanda tihs weekend. We’ll put that on hold.)

I haven’t written a Rufus-specific post since Sunday! You must be dyin’ for news!

There’s no major news. He seems to be recovering well, and is showing less and less inclination to nosh on his stitches. He still tries to get at the one unstitched area, but that’s healing over pretty well, too. He’s back to his “I’ll follow you to every room, Dad!” mode, and I’m back to putting a gate on the top of the stairs so he doesn’t follow me down when I’m getting his food or doing laundry.

I’ve started taking him out of the yard for increasingly longer walks, although I don’t want to take him on the full 1.1-mile loop of our neighborhood yet. Last night, after a bathroom break in the yard, he tried bolting back toward the house, another sign that he’s getting impatient with the slow pace I’ve been pushing on him. He’s also less likely to let me carry him up the stairs, another practice we got into to keep him from putting too much strain on his stitches.

That said, his patch-up seems to be holding together really well. We have a vet appt. on Friday afternoon, at which I’m hoping they’ll decide to take his stitches out and clear him for full activity. I miss getting out on walks, and I know he’s a-pinin’ to meet more neighbors and get more pity-scratchies.

About one hour after I posted that item on how great Rufus’ bandages were holding up, they began their pilgrimage  down his leg. Still, this wrap lasted nearly 48 hours after his Tuesday surgery, which saved me a ton of aggravation.

We went down for a 1pm followup and rebandage today. Both our lead vet (Dr. A) and the vet who handled Rufus’ first operation (Dr. R) came in to check him out. Dr. A cut off the failing bandages, carefully peeled the tape from Rufus’ tender skin, and announced, “WOW! He’s healing great!”

He assumed that some of the stitches would have torn by now, either through Rufus’ attempts at getting to them or just through his regular activity. I didn’t tell them that I’ve been on 24-hour alert, zooming into action the moment I hear the jangle of the metal tags on Rufus’ collar. But I did let them know that, while I let Ru walk down the stairs because he knows to keep from using that leg, I still carry him up the stairs as well as into the car. I figure the strain of that motion, where he pushes off with both rear legs, is more likely to cause the stitches to tear, especially with the double-leap he’d have to do in order to climb our stairs. Dr. R was glad that I wasn’t making little exceptions and taking shortcuts.

Then Dr. A said, “Well, it looks like we’re done with bandages!”

“Excuse me?” I said, shocked and already making a mental inventory of the self-adhering bandages, gauze wraps, sterile pads and other accoutrements that we’ve stockpiled.

“He’s healing so well, I don’t think he needs the bandages anymore. As long as you can keep him from reaching back there and chewing on his stitches, he should be fine till we take them out in a week or so.”

Dr. R added that she couldn’t believe how much better his skin was than when she performed the first surgery, a day after the attack. “There really wasn’t much skin to work with,” she said, “but this looks great.”

Dr. A recommended we pick up a compression wrap of some kind that can slide over the leg to protect it from Ru’s compulsive grooming, but said that his sweatshirt-cum-hip-wader was a good setup to keep the area covered. They still want us to keep Ru’s activity restricted — yard-only bathroom breaks, with no full walkies — but felt that it would be fine for Ru to promenade tomorrow morning at the farmer’s market.

Rufus, meanwhile, is simply thankful that there’s no more medical tape involved.

And, once again, the exam room turned into the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera, as virtually every employee of the animal hospital came in to say hello to Rufus, give him some rubbies and scratchies, and get a look at his big, heart-melting eyes.

No Rufus news since our last update, except to note that the bandages our vet applied after Ru’s surgery on Tuesday are still holding up! This is a great relief to me, as a big source of my consternation and anxiety during this episode has been the need to constantly reapply bandages and figure out how to keep both of Ru’s wounds covered and protected.

Last night, Nancy, one of the people from Greyhound Friends NJ who helped us adopt Rufus, stopped by to drop off a cage-type muzzle for Rufus, and also to see how he’s doing. She brought Cali, her grey-girl, along. Ru was happy to make Cali’s acquaintance, but he spent most of his time leaning against Nancy and getting rubs & scratches. And a couple of times, he simply wedged himself between Nancy and her old girl, so he could get himself a little extra love.

Today, he’s pretty much just zonked out on his bed in my home office while I do research for my July/August issue. I let him walk down the stairs on his own, because he keeps from using that rear paw when he does that, but I still carry him up the stairs like Cole Porter’s manservant.

I know all these Rufus recovery posts can be pretty exhausting. Here’s a little reminder of who we’re talking about, mere hours after yesterday’s surgery:

For the record, today’s veterinary bandage made it a grand total of 5+ hours before sliding far enough down Rufus’ leg that the top of his wound was exposed.

If you want the semi-gory visual, you can click here.