On Tuesday, I took him to the vet. They shaved the area, gave me antibiotics, and told me to keep the area clean and use Neosporin on it.
On Wednesday, I went to work and came home to find that he had been out all day. The shaved area was sunburned and looked terrible. I put aloe on it and some topical anesthetic on it to keep it from bothering him.
It didn't work, of course.
I woke up Thursday morning to find that he had licked the area raw, and it was infected. I sent an email to my boss telling him I was going to work from home that day, then called the vet and made an appointment. That visit resulted in a bottle of antiseptic wash, a tube of antibiotic cream, and an Elizabethan collar for Duncan. I'm working from home until I can leave Duncan without worrying about the collar or him licking his wound open again.
Duncan is a great dog. I have to clean this raw scabby area twice a day, which I know hurts him because he shakes the whole time, but he doesn't try to get away. When I hold up the cone to put it on him, he just sticks his head right in and lets me tie it to his collar. He acts like this is nothing new. It's amazing. He does get a little anxious after the wound cleaning, probably because it hurts, so I give him a Benedryl and he calms down.
Poor Duncan has a hard time navigating around the house with the collar on. He runs into things and catches the edge of it, then has to work out how to get un-caught. He has a hard time catching and picking up his toys, but he's gotten very good at flicking them at me with the edge of the collar. It's kind of sad watching him flick the collar up to put his head down and pick up a toy before the edge of the collar comes back down and blocks him. But it's kind of funny, too. I feel bad for laughing. He also can't seem to catch his toys if I toss them to him, so they just land in his cone. When I take him out, I have to put a T-shirt on him to keep dirt off the wound and keep it from getting sunburned more. I have to tie the waist of the shirt up in a little knot to keep him from peeing on it, and it makes him look like that gay guy on skates in Reno 911. He lets me put the shirt on, and he never tries to take it off. My poor doggy.
One of Duncan's favorite things to do is scratch his muzzle on my leg or the couch, and he can't do that with the cone on. I do it for him.
I'm going to rearrange my furniture in my bedroom tonight so that he can get around more easily in there. He got stuck on a bedside table last night and got a little panicky before I could get him unhooked. The last thing I want is to stress him more than he already is.
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