Days since…
I’ve been remiss in updating recently. Work is busy with a vengeance, and I’m stretched a bit thin.
Henry and Eo are doing pretty well, all things considered. We’ve gone two weeks now without Eo reacting negatively to Henry. As I posted below about the Wellness Simple food, Henry’s stomach is on the mend and he’s happily filling my backyard with little solid logs of poo.
Eo’s doing OK, but I had to push her Rimadyl dose up. I may have to up it again. We’re probably headed back to surgery within a month or two. I’m trying to figure out how to schedule it around any traveling I was planning to do to see relatives at Christmas — Eo may spend Christmas at the vet’s having her other hip done. Not fun. But patently better than the grinding I can feel through her skin over her right hip.
One of Eo’s main problems that I’m trying to get a handle on is her reactivity to Henry in certain situations, like when he enters a room or is laying in a spot she likes. He’ll happily defer to her. If — and that’s a very large if — she lets him before she attacks. She doesn’t draw blood in the attack, but she sounds terrifying, definitely pinches and grabs tufts of fur, and he is definitely and appropriately terrified of her. I think I’ve finally gotten the message through her thick skull that reacting that way is NOT appropriate behavior by combining positive control (aka: “Don’t let it happen!”) with positive reinforcement.
You can take the business process analyst out of the factory, but you can’t always take the factory out of the business process analyst. It helps me to track data about her behavior — for example, how long it’s been since she acted aggressively towards Henry. We now have a “Days Since a Lost Fur Incident” sign on the fridge. Every day she goes without acting aggressive, I get to stick another Post-It with a higher number on it.
We were up to six days this week until Henry sniffed at a Kong that Eo wasn’t quite done with. She didn’t actually manage to get to him (I stopped her and put her in a down-stay) but he yelped in fear and ran under the table — and I dutifully reset the clock to 0. One of these days I’ll get a week of peace.
Hi Karl,
I hope Eo get’s better soon. Since you are uping her Rimadyl dose, just make sure you look out for the side effects.
http://www.dog-arthritis-resource.com/side-effects-of-rimadyl/
My dog was not so lucky.
Geng
Geng - I’m familiar with the different side effects. Unfortunately, Eowyn was NOT so lucky with Previcox and had exactly the symptoms you described. There are different NSAIDs for dogs just like there are from humans, and it takes some experimenting and familiarity with them to get what’s right for your dog.
In Eowyn’s case, she has been both Aspirin, Previcox, and Rimadyl. The Aspirin caused no harm but did very little good. Previcox caused her to show signs of distress within an hour or two and was a midnight rush out to the vet’s for some palliative care. Rimadyl has kept her steady, but I’m worried about long-term effects on her liver … which I suppose we’ll tackle when we get there, since she’s still a very happy and active dog at this point in her life even with one post-op and one painful/swollen hip.