Damn I really hate it when doggo has issues and needs to be taken care of. I totally feel for the animal as he really doesn't understand what is going on and there is also not really a way to explain it to him and what is best for him to do.
Now don't get me wrong. I am very aware that this is an animal and I am not putting him through all kinds of weird things. But when there are lumps on him that eventually could give troubles, that means it is easier to do something about it in an earlier stage.
Warning: image of the lump coming up, so don't scroll any further if you don't want to see.
Nice wrapping on location of the IV, because doggos also need IVs
In the case the trouble maker is this lump on his paw which has been sitting there and has been gradually growing for over a year. Now the lump of course can be anything, but it is more then location that needs attention. As this dog is like a projectile every now and then and he bumps into everything, that means the chance of that this lump eventually will splash open is there for sure.
And when lumps open and the skin isn't 'normal' skin anymore, that is when it gets difficult to close it again. So it was time to get rid of it before it was growing any further.
Anesthesia
As I work in surgery myself, I am more than aware of the risks that come with having a procedure done, which are different on animals than they are for humans. For animals the biggest risk is anesthesie as that is mostly done in the form of sedation, which means the dog wil not have a 'secured airway', but will be 'just' sleeping.
That also means you don't want to wait another 3 years to remove that lumps, because anesthesia is harder on older dogs...So when you don't have to, then you don't have to.
Another reason to get the lump removed is because it can be something cancerous, which luckily it turned out not to be. YAY!! There you can see the lump in the snap higher up.
I know doesn't look that big, but you should realize that this animals paws are gi-normous!
Luckily all of this was perfectly done without any issues
The healing process is a different ballgame though!
One thing that is important in the healing process on the skin of doggo is that he shouldn't be licking the wound as that messes with the healing process.
Usually they will advise one of these sorts of hoods so he can't reach the paw. And that is when the disaster started when I put this on.
Because this dog...well let's say he didn't understand the concept of the hood very well. As in.. as soon as I put the hood on, he literally stopped moving at all. No walking, no sitting down, no laying down. And as soon as I took the hood off again he was back to normal.
So I gave it a couple of tries during the first and second day putting it on to see if he got used to it but there was literally no luck in that. He just stood there standing and didn't move at all.
Also in that first night I stayed in the same room as the dog to see what that would do and he just literally wouldn't lay down.
One thing I know from my nursing career, is that after surgery you need sleep for the body to get a chance to heal. And with that standing there with the hood on and not sleeping at all, that means this makes no sense.
I took the hood off and decide just to keep an eye on him that he doesn't lick the paw and that has been the deal now ever since. We take turns of having the dog in the same room and planning work around it and it is paying off because it is healing.
I had two 10 minutes trip to the supermarket where he immediately licked the paw and opened the wound back up again, so I guess this will be the deal of watching him until the paw is fully healed... sighhh
But I guess that is what dog owners do right?? We take care of our furry friends because they don't understand what is going on or that they are hurting themselves.
And apart from that I fooled around a bit with some AI in the mean time with the hood on I had to laugh SO hard on how he looked and I could only think about this image ;)
Hoping that the recovery speeds up rapido because I want everything to turn back to normal asap!