Thanks for the welcome …

It’s helped so much, but then I suppose most of you have been in my situation and know just how much it helps to have others say, “It’s normal to feel like that!”

And keep telling me it does get better, as at the moment I feel like death warmed over, as my Grannie used to say.

Just for the record, a Lurcher is a cross between any 2 sighthounds or a sighthound/lurcher and a one of the working dog breeds.  Most here in the UK  tend to have a spot of collie in the mix, but GSD lurchers are not unusual.  Lola obviously had whippet, grey and saluki in her mix, plus something that pointed at game.  A Pointer?  We’ll never know.  She was rescued from a Travellers site as a tiny blue eyed puppy.  Whoever kicked her into a puppy coloured pulp lost out on an awesome rabbiter.  (Not that I wanted her to do that, she just did and was very focused on the hunt. We  call it “Lurcher deafness”!)

Does the word not exist in the US?

Well, Ro came home on Thursday and it’s been very hard since.  He keeps waking and forgetting he’s one leg short of the full complement and sort of leaps up into the air … think kangaroo crossed with a bucking pony in your living room, and you can imagine the scene.  Then he stands there whining and shivering wherever he lands … often that’s in a corner, stuck so he needs coaxing to turn and/or reverse.  He is growing braver about going out … we’ve discovered that whereas pre amp he would always quite happily cock his leg in the courtyard area, he now requires soft earth, bushes and greenery.  There is an area outside the kitchen door with a few shrubs but it’s up a short flight of wide, shallow stone steps, and he needs coaxing to get up and down these.  Once there, he quite happily performs, but leg cocking is a thing of the past … at least he’s not got a right front leg to pee on anymore when he loses concentration .. as was the case in the past.  (Greyhound boys are not renowned for their mental capacity, and I have to admit, even amongst male greys, Ro is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.)

I have been sleeping downstairs on an inflatable bed with all his bedding pulled up alongside, and he’s been making a beeline for there as soon as he feels sleepy.  But he does wake in the night, and although my husband and daughter have been great letting me snatch a couple of hours in the daytime to catch up, I am bone tired.  I am dosing him with Metacam at 0500 in the morning, then a couple of tramadol at 13.00, and again at 21.00.  The lady at  the rescue said that in a couple of days I should try reducing the tramadol at 13.00 to see if he seems more alert. She thinks that his feeling a bit spaced out might affect his burgeoning self confidence.

After we got him home on Thursday I spotted some blood staining on the white cotton wool so rang the specialist vet who advised we took him in to our local practice on Friday instead of waiting til Saturday.  The local practice’s Senior Partner did the honours, and although I was dreading seeing the amputation site, it actually looks very neat … a big “Y” shaped scar, with very neat stitching.  The vet said he doesn’t usually use such a big dressing himself, and I can see the argument, but Ro is so tall I would be really scared of him knocking the wound on something and tearing the staples out.  We’re taking him back first thing tomorrow morning to get the wound checked and his dressing swapped again.  It does mean I can use the Ruffwear harness I bought after reading about it on this site … it can’t chafe the wound because that’s buried under layers of cotton wool and tape.

“What doesn’t kill you only serves to make you stronger.”  Becoming a mantra, really!

Thanks for listening.

Love Polly, Rowan and Willow XXX