A Little Forward and a Little Backward

I'm definitely considering Lexie's unwillingness to go into the back yard to use the bathroom a step backward for now.  I don't understand it.  She managed to find her way around the back yard before her enucleation (when she first went blind), and even after her enucleation Lexie has gone down the back steps into the yard, used the bathroom, and found her way back up the steps without much difficulty, but only a couple of times.  Since her enucleation surgery, she just does not want to come out onto the back deck, let alone find her way down the steps to the yard.  I just don't get it!

The only way we've been able to get Lexie to use the bathroom since she's come home from MedVet is to put on her harness and walk her out to the grassy median in front of the house.  For some reason, she has no problem manipulating the two sets of steps leading from our front door and down to the walkway, so I'm totally puzzled about why she won't do the same for the steps in the back yard.


Anyway, Justin and I had the best, laziest Saturday with our Lou.  She spent most of the day zonked out due to her pain medication, but during the times she was awake she was all smiles.

All day yesterday, Justin and I tried to get Lexie to get up on the couch with us, which has always been her favorite place to sleep and cuddle.  However, she just seemed too nervous to try.  This morning, however, I came downstairs and found her sound asleep on the couch.  Her E-collars were on the floor, so I checked her stitches immediately and was relieved to find them perfectly intact.  Then, after replacing her hard E-collar, I proceeded to cuddle her like crazy on the couch for the next three hours.

While we were cuddling, the "old Lou" made her first appearance since before her surgeries.  One of the reasons why Lexie earned her reputation as being "our little turd" is because of how demanding she can be when it comes to receiving cuddles and attention.  As you can see in the following video, if I stopped petting her for more than a few seconds, she'd start groaning in protest:



By the way, I realize that some people may find Lexie's incisions a little hard to look at, but, if it makes you feel any better, her incisions look really good, especially compared to after her last surgery.  Here is a side-by-side comparison:

So, I guess that's the update for now.  She's happy and her wounds all look good, but we haven't made a ton of forward progress yet in terms of her adjustment to blindness.  It's only been two days, though.  I can tell you this much:  it's going to be SO HARD for me to leave Lexie and go to work tomorrow.  I'm probably going to worry about her all day, but at least Justin always comes home for lunch and he can check on her for me.

Lexie's Second Homecoming

Lexie was SO happy to be going home last night!  As you can hear in the video, though, I was a little disappointed when they brought her out without a hard E-collar.  The inflatable one she's wearing belongs to me, but it doesn't protect her from bumping her face when she bumps into things.  However, when I asked (once again) if I could have a hard E-collar to take home, the vet tech told me that the inflatable one should be enough to protect Lexie's stitches.  I was too excited about taking Lexie home to insist or argue about it, so I didn't push the issue.  After all, I own a hard E-collar that she could wear that night, and I could always go to Dr. Ellis at Animal Care Clinic if the collar I have doesn't work out for her.

I couldn't see her repaired incisions because her head was already wrapped with bandages, but at first glance it didn't look like her wounds were oozing half as much as they were the last time I picked her up after her second surgery.  Lexie also looked like she had had a tummy tuck!  After her emergency C-section due to pyometra last summer, Lexie was left with a saggy, flabby belly.  It didn't bother me, but people would sometimes ask me if Lou had just had a litter of puppies.  Haha!  "Nope.  She's just fat."  Anyway, I'm just saying that having a mastectomy has left Lexie looking very svelte.  

As we left MedVet (hopefully for the last time), Lexie was so excited that she was swinging her head from side to side while she walked, like a little Lexie Wonder!  When I opened the car door, she recognized that sound right away and knew exactly how to climb up into the back seat all by herself.  I had her new doggy bed laying in the middle of the back seat, and she plopped right down on top of it.  I climbed into the back seat and sat behind her, but that wasn't good enough for me.  I wanted to cuddle her little face!  So, I maneuvered my way down to the other end of the back seat where Lexie's head was laying, and as soon as I sat down by her face, Lexie immediately laid her head and put her paws in my lap.  It was a total "awwwww" moment.  Then, after we got back on the road, I noticed she was shivering a little bit because the air conditioning was blowing on her.  Luckily, I had brought her favorite comforter, and so Lexie and I snuggled under the blankets during the entire three-hour ride back to West Virginia.

Once we were home, Lexie knew EXACTLY where she was, and she was so happy!  I decided to take her out to the back yard with her sisters before taking off her harness, just in case I needed to help her find her way up and down the deck steps and the back yard.  She did really well, though!  She was a tad apprehensive about going down the steps, but as soon as she found the yard she peed immediately, and then successfully made her way back up the steps and into the house without much difficulty.

When I removed Lexie's bandages, I did notice some blood (or "bloody fluid," I should say), but not nearly as much as after her last surgery.  In fact, her incisions look pretty good!  There's some swelling above her right eye, and that right incision still oozes a lot more than the left, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that her right eye has the vertical incision.

On a side note, one thing I hadn't really considered while preparing for Lexie's homecoming was the fact that Sam is now going to go through a new adjustment period, too.  This may sound awful, but Sam actually acted a little hurt or upset about Lexie being home again.  To be fair, Sam LOVES attention, but has always been perfectly content to sort of take the back seat to Lexie, who is a little more demanding about receiving attention whenever she wants it, which is just about always.  So, while Lexie was at MedVet over the past couple of weeks, Sam gradually became more and more assertive about receiving attention from me and Justin whenever SHE wanted it.  As soon as Lexie walked through the front door last night, though, it's like someone completely let the air out of Sam's tires.  She kind of curled up in the corner of the couch and pouted while everyone fussed over Lexie (Zach and Kristy came over to welcome Lexie home, too).

I do feel bad that Sam's not receiving as much one-on-one attention now that Lexie is home, but unfortunately it can't really be helped right now.  Lexie is going to need extra attention as she heals and learns how to safely navigate around the house and back yard.  Justin and I are trying to be as mindful as possible of Sam's feelings and give her extra cuddles whenever we can, but I think it's going to be a bit of a delicate juggling act with those two for a while.  (Jocie, by the way, hasn't been affected at all by anything that's been going on, but that's just Jocie.)

Anyway, after watching Lexie bump her face on a couple different things in the house, I decided to fasten the hard E-collar I had over top of the inflatable E-collar she was already wearing.  (That way, she can't pull the hard E-collar off.)  At first, Justin and I felt bad for Lexie because of all the stuff around her poor little head, but once we saw how much better the hard E-collar was protecting her from bumping her face into things, we didn't feel so bad anymore.

Unfortunately, as soon as Justin and I went upstairs to go to bed last night, Lexie managed to pull both the hard and inflatable E-collars off.  Justin discovered this when he ran back downstairs to get something.  So, we decided it might be best to sleep in the same room as Lexie for at least the first night.  Justin slept on the couch, but I chose to sleep on Lexie's new doggy bed in the floor with her (the purple pillow in that photo was mine).  Haha!   It was uncomfortable and blissful all at once, but she barely moved all night long.

When I tried to get Lexie to go out this morning, she acted like she wanted to at first, but as soon as she made it to the back door, she became very apprehensive about going outside.  I tried calling her for a while, but when that didn't work I decided to try leading her out with her harness and leash.  At first, that seemed to be working, but as soon as Lexie reached the steps, she decided she didn't want to go down them.  I told her that was fine, that she didn't HAVE to go pee right now if she wanted to hold it, but when I tried to get her to go back inside, she wouldn't budge.  In fact, I think she was a little disoriented at that point and wasn't really sure which way she was facing.  I jokingly informed Justin that Lexie was "lost on the back deck," but I knew she would figure it out eventually.  She did, but it took a LONG time for her to come back inside.

So, getting Lexie to go out to use the bathroom during the day is apparently still going to be a challenge, but I'm hoping she'll become more comfortable with that routine over time.  For now, she's sleeping a lot, but she's eating and drinking like a champ.  She's also SUPER cuddly, which you'll never hear me complain about.  In fact, as I began typing this blog post, Lexie followed the sound of my typing, found me on the couch, and did this:

:)

Blind Dobe Preparations

I know this is going to shock you guys, but last night Justin and I decided that we'd rather pick Lexie up tonight than wait until Saturday morning because we don't want to spend half the day driving to and from Ohio tomorrow.  We'd rather get home really late with her tonight so that we can have ALL day tomorrow and Sunday to hang out with her at home.  So, I'm going to pick up my Lou tonight!!!!!  

I don't know if you guys remember this commercial, where the kids are so excited about going to Disney World that they're "too excited to sweep":



Well, that was basically me this morning.  My eyes popped open around 5:00 a.m. and all I could think was, "I get to pick up my Lou today!!!"  I then proceeded to surf the Internet on my iPhone while laying in bed for the next hour and a half, Googling things like "blind dog toys" and "helping your blind dog adjust." 

We've actually been preparing for Lexie's new life as a blind dog for several weeks.  My back deck is basically just an elevated, 6-foot wide, wooden platform with two sets of four steps leading down to the back yard, but there were no railings or boundaries along the edges.  When Lexie first lost her vision, she terrified me by falling off the deck not once, but three times!  It's only about 3 feet off the ground, but that's plenty high enough for her to get hurt if she landed the wrong way.  So, building a railing for the deck became my TOP priority.  The problem is that neither I, Justin, nor any of our immediate family members are very handy. 

So, my good friend, Shane, came to the rescue!  With the help of my brother, Zach, and Zach's girlfriend, Kristy, Shane installed a railing along the edge of the deck in no time.


We decided that I should also put up some lattace along the bottom of the deck so that Lexie couldn't get lost underneath, and the steps also needed some sort of railing or boundary so that she couldn't accidentally walk off the sides.  I had gotten so caught up with Lexie's latest emergency, however, that I hadn't gotten around to purchasing the lattace and lumber yet.

Then, just a couple days ago, I came home from work to find that Shane had borrowed my house key from Zach and Kristy (they live right next door) and come over during the day to install railings on the steps and lattace underneath my deck as a surprise!  I'm telling you guys, I have the BEST friends in the ENTIRE word.  You just don't even know...

The other measures I have taken to help Lexie adjust are:

• I bought all three girls new collars with metal ID tags, which jingle a little whenever they move around.  That way, Lexie will always know where her sisters are.
• I bought elevated food bowls for the girls.  I know that it's best to feed larger dogs out of elevated food bowls anyway, but my girls are all kind of lazy and have always preferred to lay down on the floor while they ate.  Lexie was kicking and tripping over the bowls, though, so I figured it was time we got them off the floor. 
• I purchased textured outdoor doormats and placed one at the top step of the back deck and one at the bottom to help Lexie know when she needs to step up and step down.  I blocked the other set of steps off with a baby gate.
• I read online that it is good to help your blind dog establish a "home base" with a doggy bed, so I purchased one last night.  Mind you, I highly doubt Lexie will use it.  We've had doggy beds before, but Jocie was always the only one who seemed to aprpeciate them.  So, I fully expect Jocie to claim the new doggy bed as hers, too, but I thought it would be worth a shot to see if Lexie might use it when she gets home.  I'm going to have the new doggy bed in the back seat when I pick her up tonight, and hopefully she'll lay on it during the ride home.
• I know Lexie probably won't feel like playing much for the first couple weeks that she's back home, but I'm really hoping that once she's healed she'll get some of her spunk back and we can learn some new games to play together.  She loves to play tug with her stuffed animals (after she gets tired of cuddling them), so last night we bought her a Kong Wubba toy that looks like a cross between a teddy bear and an octopus and has a LOUD squeaker inside (Lexie loves to squeak her stuffed animals at us).  I also bought her a Kong ball, which has slits all around it so you can insert treats inside. I'm hoping Lexie will utilize her sense of smell to find the ball when I throw it.  This will be a new game for us, as Lexie has always prefered stuffed animals over rubber toys.  I'm hoping she'll enjoy it, though.

All in all, I feel more than ready for Lexie to come home tonight.  In fact, this is going to be the longest day EVER!!!  Come on 5:00 p.m.!!!!