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.