The road to recovery

As the song goes, "Whatever gets you through the night, is alright, alright!"

The Excedrin are for me, the gourmet grub is for Petey. As my friend Glenn says, "I want a burger in a can!"

Well, it's our second day home and Petey is definitely making progress! He is happy to go for a nice long walk, even gave a Wheaten terrier a "what are you looking out?" Cujo-like snarl today. Trust me, this is a sign that things are getting back to normal - Boxers, Wheatens, some German Shepherds are all on Petey's "get'em before they get me" radar. And especially Huskies.

While we were waiting for his appointment on Tuesday morning, I saw a woman outside unloading four, count'em four Huskies from her SUV. I tried to quickly get one of the nurses' attention before they arrived in the lobby as I knew Petey, even in pain, would go nuts. (Once at the dog run when Petey was having a drink of water and marinating a tennis ball in the bowl, an enormous Malumute came up and put his mouth around Petey's neck. I screamed and leapt up, the dog's owner did the same, Petey picked up his tennis ball and trotted away unscathed. But ever since, he's gone cuckoo when he sees any variety of sled dog. Sorry Khyra! If you two were off-leash at the run, he'd be fine.)

Sure enough, the Huskies make it into the glass enclosed vestibule and Petey's barking and growling and snapping at his leash. I grab him and they send us off to an office and I just ask him "Really Petey? You were going to take on FOUR Huskies???"

Petey's always liked his sleep but now with the advantage of having one eye already closed, he seems to be napping more than ever. He's also still taking some pain meds that make him drowsy so I'm not too concerned - figure sleep is probably what his little body needs right now.

Or should I say, not-so-little-body. I think Petey's put on a pound or two since this ordeal began, not in small part from me coddling him with cookies, extra treats (ice cream - dog and human varieties), and fancy gourmet canned dog food (see photo). He was turning up his nose at his Wellness Healthy Weight kibble —and frankly, can you blame him? — and I thought that his sense of smell might be compromised a bit with his surgery, so we got some fancy grub that we usually only get for special occasions. (Petey highly recommends Merrick's Thanksgiving Dinner for all of your upcoming canine and feline holiday festivities.) Yesterday, he got about half a can for dinner and licked the bowl clean. Today a heaping spoonful on the kibble got the same results.

He happily trotted around the block last night with his buddy/bodyguard/wingman Bear and this morning would have pulled me down Bleecker Street to Soho if he'd had his way. He still wants to retreat to his "bunker" - a canvas bag of off-season clothes under the bed - so I've had to head him off at the pass. I don't want him getting dust in his eye or banging his cone against his head under the bed. So he's snoozing away on the top of the bed, legs occasionally twitching as he dreams.

Day by day. Definitely making progress.

Hey, if you didn't see my facebook post yesterday, our wonderful primary vet, Dr. DeLorenzo called to see how Petey was doing. She had not seen him during this whole ordeal because it was after hours when I first spotted his red eye and I took him to a vet a few blocks away who is open later in the evening. The surgeon had sent detailed reports to the referring vet and to Dr. DeLorenzo. Dr. D had called the surgeon and spoken with her then called me. Said to feel free to call her if I have any questions or if Petey just wants to drop by for a cookie (we can't walk by without him stopping in his tracks and pulling to go in to say "hello, I'd like a cookie please.).

It was a year ago today that Dr. DeLorenzo helped Mica on his way to the Bridge. Which just sort of added to the sadness and worry of the past week. I wasn't ready for news that Petey might be joining Mica at the Bridge anytime soon and fortunately, that reunion has been postponed indefinitely. A couple months after Mica died, I received a card from the Tufts University Veterinary School that a donation had been made in his memory by Dr. DeLorenzo and her staff.

Isn't that marvelous? It restores my faith in the goodness of people, especially those who love our pets almost as much as we do.

UPDATE: Perhaps too ambitiously, I took Petey for a walk over to the dog run, correctly assuming no one would be there during the afternoon (although there was much activity in the Meatpacking District in anticipation of Fashion's Night Out this evening). Got tears in my eyes when Petey trotted over to the first tennis ball, tentatively picked it up then rejected it for the next tennis ball which he carried around as he inspected the half dozen or so on the ground. Finally he dropped it in front of me, I gave it a little roll towards his good eye and he grabbed it and lay down. He was tired, so we walked over to the water bowl where he dropped the ball in then we walked home. About a block away, he slowed down a bit so we waited a little while and I carried him a bit. Now he's home, cone back on, up on the bed and having just taken a pain pill, I'm sure he'll soon be dreaming of chasing down tennis balls in the near future.