Thursday, May 29, 2008
zeke update
Either one or both of us is off thru Monday to stay with him and then he will come to work with me and hopefully rest peacefully in my office.
Oh, and I have to make a correction, he has staples not sutures.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Zeke is Home... continued
FIRST - No playing, running, jumping, or having fun for like 6 weeks -- any idea how long that translates into puppy time??? And its not like they handed me back a docile, weak, sick little thing! Zeke is up and getting around on his bionic leg. He doesn't seem to realize that his leg is broken and has a plate with several screws holding it together.
Secondly - we're supposed to keep him separated from Sadie unless they are being calm. Calm is not something these labs do very well. Just getting Sadie in the house and in her crate past the medicated Zeke was quite a feat. Oh, and did I mention the cat that Z loves to chase???
The solution is evidently tranquilizers, which seems kind of unfair, but its for the greater good I suppose. We'll be in a real bad spot if he re-injures that leg.
Zeke's Home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The vet's exact words to me "He's going to be a handful."
last night's visit
Here are a few pics, all from my camera phone so sorry about quality.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew they would have to shave him to get to cutting, but I hadn't really imagined seeing my dog with a 1/4 of his body shaved. So that was a little startling.
He did wag his tail some and seemed in a little better spirits, he was whining like he was in pain still. And he was shaking a lot, which we were told was because of the narcotics that he is on, it makes dogs nervous and so they shake.
Here is sort of a close up of the cut and the staples.
I'm supposed to call at 10 today to check on him and confirm that we can pick him up and take him home around 11.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
surgery update
hospital visitation
morning update

Monday, May 26, 2008
The Memorial Day that was crap

How did this happen? It all started with a brilliant plan to load up and visit a beach that was fairly dog friendly that neither I, nor Zeke's dad (Thumper) had ever visited. Thus began the Memorial Day 2008 nightmare. We loaded up the kids and all the beach peripherals and headed about an hour from home. We arrive at the state park and are sitting two back in line to pay the gate and Zeke's dad rolls down one of the back windows in our 4Runner so the kids can smell the salt air, I turned around and saw both Zeke and Sadie poking their noses out just like they would do on any other day. Thumper dropped me off at the bathroom and then parked the truck, when I got back, he asks 'where is Zeke?' and 'did you leave him at home?'
Apparently Zeke jumped or fell out of the window, there are scratch marks on my door, but neither of us heard any thing at all.
The search begins, I start running back to the gate asking people if they have seen him; halfway there I see two park rangers and was going to ask them about locating him and there Zeke sits with them as they are getting ready to call our # on his collar. They tell me that some kids saw him and gave Zeke to the rangers. He is not putting any weight on his rear left leg but is not complaining at all when you touch anywhere on his body. Thumper comes over and picks him up the rangers are thinking a sprain maybe, but when we get him back to the truck something is definitely not right with the leg. I thought it was dislocated because we could just pick up the leg and lift away from his body.
We call our vet to get the # for the after hours emergency place (which happens to be right down the street from my office) and they tell me they are slammed and its like a 3 hour wait, but what other option do we have. Load back up and drive the hour back into town, Zeke wanted to lay in the floorboard but we all soon realize that is a bad idea, he starts yelping so we pull over and get him situated on the seat again. He is shaking most of the way but no whining.
Thankfully when we get to the vet the wait has been reduced, we sat there for about an hour before the tech took us back. She took a few vitals and then carried Zeke to the back so the Dr could examine him back there. It was so sad, when she asked Zeke if wanted to go back with her he started to give a cheerful little tail wag but he didn't even get a half wag out. That seemed like it took FOREVER. The Dr says she thinks its a broken bone and wants to do x-rays, but that could take a while longer and so suggests we leave and they'll call us. We got to see Zeke before we left, they had given him some pain medicine and he was acting much more like himself and I petted him through the cage. I cried, but we left him, so he could be monitored by people who know what the heck they are doing.
We got a call back an hour later, telling us the results of the X-Ray mentioned at the first of this post. One frustration is that I would like our vet's opinion, but the office doesn't open till 8am and he gets in at 9am, and if we are taking Zeke from the emergency place they want him checked out by 8am. The end result being we have decided to leave him there and let the specialist carry on when he gets rolling at 9am tomorrow, but supposedly doesn't do surgeries till the afternoon, so there would still be time for the ortho guy and my vet to talk.
I feel guilty for leaving him there. Sure there are trained staff at the clinic all night but wouldn't he be happier laying on a soft cushion here in his own home, couldn't they send him home with some pain meds and let me pet on him. And the vet gave us the option to take him home tonight... that makes the decision even harder. I cannot even begin to describe how stressed I feel right now and I can't stop thinking of how lonely Zeke must feel in that metal cage with all of those sick animals around him. It's probably going to be a long night for all of us.
Till tomorrow then.
cookout time
Thursday, May 22, 2008
all my shots!
He was 44.2 lbs! That's a big puppy.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Back from Bama
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Zeke featured on the company website
Sunday, May 11, 2008
A Mother's Day Hike
Time for a pit stop.
I
Saturday, May 10, 2008
blocked
Friday, May 9, 2008
training frustrations
They're are a couple of local clubs that offer classes, and I'd like to get involved with them, it just so happens that the timing of their new classes is either such that we would miss several of the first classes or on a day that is really hard for us to get there. We might be able to join one of them later in the summer.
I've been asking around for anyone who does private in-home instruction. Found one person in my area, but I don't know much about her. Several people that I trust have recommended a book called "Water Dog" by Richard Wolters. He has a whole series of books on training and God bless Amazon and their free shipping.
So the training frustrations do not stem from Zeke, I know that really I am the one who needs to be trained on how to handle him, Zeke is a super smart boy -- his mom just needs to learn.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
First Road Trip
Asleep on the Job
Here is Zeke hard at work.
It takes alot of determination to sleep like that.
Getting your paws wet
Back to the Future
Yesterday did NOT start well. Zeke decided to run across a busy road in front of my store in the morning to meet some guy who was crossing it. He narrowly escaped being hit by two cars, the man grabbed his collar and held him until the rest of the traffic cleared and I could get him. I thought I had swallowed my heart, I was shaking so bad, of course none of this affected Zeke.
Later in the day I find out that he has made a mess (AKA #2) in one of the offices. We haven't had any accidents in a very long time, so I'm not sure what that was about. I cleaned that up and we moved on.
After work Zeke and I went down to the local walking trail where there is a storm water run off and played in the creek/ditch. This is an on going effort to get Zeke comfortable in the water. And he did splendidly, only whined a little bit and then came out in the water with me, even swam across a couple times. As we were getting ready to leave he even tried to jump up in the truck, which is a first, we have been picking him up to load him. He failed miserably of course, but I was very very proud of his try.
He is also surprised me by showing off his ability to jump up on the love seat and couch. I think we are moving into that bravado stage.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Coming Home
First post, about 7 weeks late
