Lately he is driving me crazy with all that he is getting into in the kitchen. He is a big dog so of course he can graze the counters and I am always careful not to leave food out. But lately he is being insane. He totally shredded Clare's lunch box (there was no food inside but it smelled like food so he tore it up looking for food.) I keep snack food stashed in my room and he at 15 packets of crackers in my room. He ate a loaf of bread and some tortillas of the counter. He ate oatmeal packets. Every time he eats something he takes it from the kitchen and hides behind the couch and shreads the wrappers and crumbs all over. IT MAKES ME CRAZY. I dont' know why he is being so crazy right now. He is getting exercise. Normally he is only crazy like this when he isn't getting exercise. Sometimes he drives me nuts.
Anyway....
About 6 weeks ago Tressel got attacked by another dog at dog beach. It was not a fight, it was a full on attack from the other dog. Tressel and Dave were running full speed down the beach and a dog came from the side and viciously attacked Tressel, taking a huge bite out of his side. The dog continued to try to go at Tressel until the other dog owner could pry him off of Tressel. Tressel was not at all interested in fighting the dog. He just wanted to get away so he could go play. It was a Sunday morning so we had to take Tressel to the emergency pet clinic.
Here is the bite right after it happened while we were still at the beach.
The day after the bite. At home with stitches
The first day or two tressel laid around. He probably didn't feel that great. After the first few days he was back to his usual self but still had the cone on.
A few days later the wound started to weep. This is when the girls really freaked out. They didn't want blood to rub off on them or their clothes or their bed. I can't say I blame them. It was so gross.
Then, the stitches busted open. I was so bugged. The crazy vet used tiny sutures. Dave says he would have used bigger stitches on a 3 year old child, let alone a huge dog with a wound under tension. I was really worried that it would open all the way up or that he'd get infected. The vet wanted me to put him back on antibiotics but when I stopped by the vet office and they tried to charge me $80 for them I said "NO WAY!" and decided to take my chances.
Clare drew this picture of Tressel! So sad! By this point the kids were pretty weirded out. They didn't let Tressel in their rooms for fear he would get blood on their bed or clothes.
By about the 3 week mark it was looking a little better. Everything was healed except for the part that had opened up.
Dave took the stitches out. (love his tools? Teasers and finger nail clippers?) The vet was totally insane and there was no way we were going back to her. She was very inefficient and so slow so it wasn't worth the return trip to get the stitches out there.
Another week later, and it was all scabbed over.
After about 5 weeks....
almost fully healed
Now almost 2 months later there isn't much change. The scar is pretty big. I will be interested to see how it changes with time. Hopefully it will be a little smaller.
The dog was a little bit taller than Tressel and probably
about the same weight. When the bite happened, the other dog owner said he'd pay half. I told him he'd pay in full, which he eventually did. The vet bill was $950. If we were paying in full we would have had dave sew him at home. There's no way we would have paid that.
1 comment:
I CANNOT believe he said he would pay half! Are u kidding, glad he paid in full afterall. Glad it is healing. Joe removed milly's stitches himself after she was spayed....some perks of med training right!
Post a Comment