Well, like i had posted on the "our new shelter dog" thread, Fosters got neutered on monday. At the time he seemed to be doing quite well and recovering nicely.Well clearly i was wrong. It's been a long week! To start off, Colin and I live in different houses...he has Fosters at his house, and all of my kitties, my wolf mix, and my rabbit live with me. When i left Colin's house on monday night, i made him promise to buy Fosters an E Collar before he went to work on wednesday so that Fosters wouldn't chew his stitches out while he was in the house without us there to supervise.( he had tues off.). Well, apparently Colin "forgot" because when i stopped by Colin's house on wednesday to check on Fosters and let him outside while Colin was on duty ( he's a police officer---i didn't work part of the week because i had food poisioning.), Fosters had meticiously chewed out 4 of 5 stitches....and well he did a "good job" because he didn't burst anything open and there were no visible signs of infection. So since he chewed his stitches out, i immedately brought him to the vet to be checked out. He was such a good boy too- he even tried to kiss the vet while the vet was doing his check up. ( not the vet i normally use, he volunteers at the shelter Fosters came from and does free post opp. visits when there is a problem) The vet was very nice and did a full vet check on him after he looked over the incision site....Fosters is 15lbs underweight, younger than we thought - about 18months, and definitely has Collie in him- althought we're not definite on the Australian Shepherd but think he has a little in him! And he's put on weight since we adopted him so that means he was even more underweight when he was at the shelter---i'm so glad we have him now and can put some meat on his bones....he weighs 51.9 lbs now and he should weigh around 65 according to the vet...so we're just going to keep feeding him like we've been doing and he should gain a healthy amoung of weight for his size.
Well anyways, the vet decided not to restitch him at the time because his incision site had already started to heal and it wasn't bursted open...we didn't want to reopen the wound and take the chance of him getting an infection so we decided not to restitch and were planning on leaving the one stitch he didn't pull out in there for a week. After his trip to the vet, i stopped and bought him an E collar so we wouldn't have a repeat of the same incident. Well, that night, when colin got off work i told him what happened and he felt horrible ( he means well, sometimes he just needs to use a little common sense with animal care. He spent all night babying Fosters after that --lol i don't think Fosters minded one bit, he loves his daddy) At one point, we were both grooming Fosters (avioding the incision area) when we noticed the whole area was turning crimson red....at that point we decided to take him back into the vet on Friday. Colin took him in while i was at work and saw a different vet. She took out the stitch that was left and gave him 3 staples just in case....she also put him on a round of antibiotics. That seems to have done the trick...The redness has gone away ( i think it was just irritation, both vets ruled out infection). and he seems to be a lot happier. He's laying in the floor right now with his little e collar on attempting to chew his rawhide. So needless to say, it's been a rough week for our new little shelter pup, but he's pulling through quite well and we haven't had any more problems since his vet check yesterday. He goes back in a week to get the staples out...and after that he should be in the clear. I'll keep everyone posted on his progress. Please send him some good vibes, he's getting his energy and appetite back, but i still don't think he feels to great. Thanks everyone!
Well anyways, the vet decided not to restitch him at the time because his incision site had already started to heal and it wasn't bursted open...we didn't want to reopen the wound and take the chance of him getting an infection so we decided not to restitch and were planning on leaving the one stitch he didn't pull out in there for a week. After his trip to the vet, i stopped and bought him an E collar so we wouldn't have a repeat of the same incident. Well, that night, when colin got off work i told him what happened and he felt horrible ( he means well, sometimes he just needs to use a little common sense with animal care. He spent all night babying Fosters after that --lol i don't think Fosters minded one bit, he loves his daddy) At one point, we were both grooming Fosters (avioding the incision area) when we noticed the whole area was turning crimson red....at that point we decided to take him back into the vet on Friday. Colin took him in while i was at work and saw a different vet. She took out the stitch that was left and gave him 3 staples just in case....she also put him on a round of antibiotics. That seems to have done the trick...The redness has gone away ( i think it was just irritation, both vets ruled out infection). and he seems to be a lot happier. He's laying in the floor right now with his little e collar on attempting to chew his rawhide. So needless to say, it's been a rough week for our new little shelter pup, but he's pulling through quite well and we haven't had any more problems since his vet check yesterday. He goes back in a week to get the staples out...and after that he should be in the clear. I'll keep everyone posted on his progress. Please send him some good vibes, he's getting his energy and appetite back, but i still don't think he feels to great. Thanks everyone!
