October 2016 – Meg the Tripawd

One month ampuversary (and two days)

I can’t believe how quickly, but also slowly this month has gone! It seems like a forever ago that Meg was just back from hospital, but also saying “it’s been one/two/three/four weeks since surgery” kept changing over very fast!

Everyday people see Meg at the park and ask what happened to her, always somewhat disappointed to hear a sad cancer story, not a heroic gory story, yet everyone is amazed at how quickly she has recovered. We always see people trying to watch her without us noticing, or on the flip side, people will come from all corners to ask about that three legged dog.

Today we saw our first tripawd since Megs surgery, sadly Meg and that dog didn’t really notice each other, let alone bond! Next time.

Meg can do just about everything she could do before, and is the same joyful, cranky, silly girl. The only thing she can’t do is scratch her ear, but she has learnt if she comes up to us and wags her stump about we’ll scratch for her.

It makes me wonder what I was so stressed about before surgery, and why I was so scared that we’d end up with a different dog on three legs.

In the next few weeks we have a santa paws photo shoot AND a photo shoot with Meg and Dotti that we won not long after Megs surgery.

Happy times ahead!

Meg-a-soccer-star

Meg doesn’t play with tennis balls much outside. Instead she players with soccer balls that are as big as her. Turns out three legs is no problem when it comes to this skill.

Stitches are out!

After 14 days, this afternoon Meg took a trip to the vet and got her stitches out! Her wound is looking good and she was given a clean bill of health from the vet*

*we still have to go back in a few months to check the cancer didn’t actually spread

Go Meggymoo!

A trip to the doggo park afterwards was well and truly in order – Meg was very happy to not be held back from chasing other dogs, and running away from other dogs.

Her sparkle is well and truly back, although she is still getting tired easily and has sore muscles, who could blame her for that though! She is missing a leg after all!

Now to get on with life though! Mainly sleep.

Also today, Meg’s lil belly had finally lost enough swelling for her ruffwear web master harness to fit again, and she went for her first walk around the block with it, only the second time she has gone around the block since the surgery! It seemed to help her balance, especially towards the end once she tired.

wp_20161005_09_33_29_pro — Ruffwear Web Master harness (XXS)

Get ready for new adventures as a stitch free tripawd Meg!

Meg knows when we can’t take her straight to the vet!

I swear dogs have a talent of knowing when it is Sunday, which means our regular vet shuts in the early afternoons.

For the last two sundays Meg has presented herself with complications that I would love to call the vet about, or better yet, bring her into the clinic and have her looked at right away. Because I’m a paranoid furmum of course!

Yesterday we were coming home from a short trip, and I went to get the dogs out of the car. They were’t on leads and given there was a dog across the road that they’d run across to, it seemed easier to carry them from the car to the gate into the apartment complex.

In the time it took to pick Dotti up and give her to Tim (a second or two), Meg decided she was ready to jump out the car like she used to as a quad-dog. She landed it, seemed fine. I was furious at her of course.

That was until I saw a bit of blood where she was laying, and some blood across Dotti’s face (get out of it, Dot!). Flipped Meg over and had a look at the incision – about 2 or 3 centimetres of the wound was bleeding, and almost looked like it had come open. The stitches were still in but it didn’t look good! This of course had to happen right before we were due to arrive at a get together around the corner (with the dogs, of course).

All regular vets were closed and calling the 24hr emergency vets for advice seemed costly, especially if she needed to go in there! The internet isn’t helpful for these things, especially when we weren’t even sure what she’d done to the wound. The wound stopped bleeding and looked to be a bit more stuck together again when I looked at it 5 minutes later. We put the cone back on and reluctantly got on with the evening. I was fearing the entire thing would come open, infections, stitches falling out, all sorts of drama that would result in an expensive trip to the 24hr vets. Luckily none of these things happened (although, I wouldn’t be opposed to her having a course of antibiotics), and Meg happily rested and lapped up attention at our friends get together.

Meg is fine, the incision site looked back to normal by the time we went to bed and again this morning.

Lesson learned though – no more exerting yourself before ‘stitches out Wednesday’, Meg!