Home again!

Daphne is home!!

She came home on Saturday morning. I brought my Mom with me so she could sit in the back of the van with Daphne.  She likes to stand up any time I stop or turn a corner.  I don’t think she trusts my sense of direction.  For the record, no one should trust my sense of direction. I can get lost in a trailer.  Any how, I wanted Mom to keep her at least seated during the trip.  I bought her a tripod harness and when she saw that she was finally going home, she took off like a shot.  Hopped up into the van without a thought.  The vet, Dr. Vendervente, gave us a treat bag of drugs to go home with.  I thought please let her be as easy to medicate as my old Dane, Diesel.  I just threw his into his food – didn’t even attempt to hide them.  I think he just assumed they were marshmallow bits.  Mmmmm… Lucky Charms again!  Oh Boy!  No such luck with Daphne!  I’ve tried to hide them in pill pockets, cheese, hamburger, bread and chicken wieners.  She delicately eats everything but the dang pill!  So I just shove pills down her throat and then apologize with a chicken wiener.  Unfortunately for Daphne and my hand, she takes 26 pills/day.  That’s a heck of a lot of apologizing and wieners.  Thank God! This is only for a short time.  She takes Tramadol, Gabapentin and Meloxicam for pain.  She takes Aminocaproic Acid to help clear up all the bruising.  She takes Cephalexin as an antibiotic and she takes Omeprazole as a stomach stabilizer.  Holy crap eh?  Many of these will be all done in 5 days time.  I end up stopping the Meloxicam.  Dr. Vendevente wasn’t sure that Daphne would be able to tolerate the drug with her tender belly and new gastropexy and told me that if I thought she seemed sore to quit this drug.  I gave her a first dose Saturday and within a few hours went off her food.  Wouldn’t even eat peanut butter cookies for me. That’s a bad sign.  So no more Meloxicam for her and she wouldn’t eat anything on Sunday but is back on her food today.  Now she won’t share the peanut butter cookies.

Thanks to a tip from another owner of a Tripawd Dane, I had bought a lot of yoga mats to put down on my hardwood floors.  They work great!  They don’t slip even when they have a hopping giant going full tilt on them.  Saturday and Sunday, Daph was pretty lethargic but she did all of her business outside and had the biggest poop EVER!  She hadn’t gone in 6 days.  She must have been soooo relieved.

However, Today she feels a heck of a lot better.  For the 1st 2 days, she was all business.  Go outside, do her business and then back to bed.  Now, She wants to hang out and eat snow, check out the neighbours, eat more snow, flirt with Oscar, my backdoor neighbour’s dog, eat more snow.  Meanwhile I’m in my pj’s, freezing to death.   “Daphne Go PEE, PLEASSSE!”  She also likes to walk into a corner to mark her territory and then the two of us suddenly realize, we can’t back out very well.

Also today she got up all by herself TWICE and walked into the kitchen by herself.  Alas, I didn’t have any yoga mats in the kitchen so she slid down to a sit and had to wait for a rescue from my Mom.  We’re not sure where she was trying to go or why.  I was outside shovelling both times.  Maybe she was trying to find me.  (She got lost again!)  Maybe she was having a hankering for more snow.

Her stump looks really good.  No weeping or oozing.