Another Big Dog Day and Breeze Improvements

We had a big dog day yesterday. Both Dru and Breeze had a trip to the vet. Dru is letting out yelps when she is laying down or shifting her position when down. Not always, only sometimes. After a very thorough exam and x-rays, the diagnosis is a sprained back and some time off with massage. She hates being grounded. But she loves massages.

Breeze has a little smaller than dime-sized wound on her rear haunch that won’t completely heal, it’s been over 2 months. The vet took one look at it and said it needs to come off and be tested for malignant cells. I agreed whole heartily. So, since she is going to be out, we are also going to do a dental. Whew boy, does she need it. I didn’t realize the importance of brushing every day until I read the post and watched the video Jennifer put together over at Never Say Never Greyhounds.

I also asked him to look at the corns on her feet again since they are really bothering her. He said he would hull them out, but would really prefer to exhaust every other possibility first. He is pretty firm on not surgically removing them, due to the high probability of them coming back and the alterations to the pads. Especially since she loves to run so much. So we are trying a few things first before attacking them surgically. If any of you have suggestions for treating corns on greyhounds, I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance.

But, that is not the reason for this post. The reason is to share how well Breeze did at the vet office. Both the Doc and the vet tech have a wonderful way and energy about them. They know Breeze and all her issues, so they move slow, get down low and talk quietly. He would work with Breeze for just a few minutes, then go to Dru, giving Breeze a bit of time to relax and recoup (well as much as possible) before continuing the exam.

After we had been in the room for a while, he was examining Dru’s back again, the vet tech was holding on to Dru’s head/collar and I was towards her rear end, Breeze sauntered past me, sidled around Dru and sniffed at the vet tech, asking to be pet. We all paused.

No, that’s not quite right.

The whole room froze.

The tech reached out and pet Breeze then Breeze looked at the vet like “what are you waiting for?”. He reached over Dru to pet Breeze also. Celebration! I couldn’t believe it. She accepted it for about a minute then retreated to her corner. Holy crap, talk about progress! I did have her patched and sprayed (a new rug-free medical technology, that is working quite well with stress reduction for her, I will talk about it at some point in the future) and we have been talking with an animal communicator (something else we will be talking about in the future). I figure it all helps.

By the time we got home (after a stop at a friend’s house where she met, and did very well with, a man) she was exhausted and let me wrap her foot without so much as twitching. She spent the whole day today sleeping, without the normal prodding for me to take her to the park. It was obviously a lot for her last night, but she did swimmingly!

All of that got me to thinking about how far she has come since I got her 3 years ago (her gotcha’ day was the 14th!) and that I haven’t posted a segment in the Breeze saga in quite some time. I believe one is in order. Check back in the next few days for the continuation of Teh Breeze Saga.