Poor Kaiser

Poor Kaiser. It's been a rough couple of days for the Klee Kai. Thankfully things seem to be improving quickly now, so hopefully we'll stay on that trend.

I have been spying on the dogs via the web cam again for the last week or more. This week I had it turned on every day due to my three-day work spree at Petco and wanting to know how the dogs were handling all of that alone time. I was also monitoring how things were going with the anti-bark device.

Quick update on that -- I had it turned on Monday and noticed that Luke and Secret were not spending any time whatsoever in the living room. I believe that someone barked and they have decided that the living room is not a good place to be because that awful noise happens there. We got absolutely dumped on with rain that evening and when I came home from Petco Luke was SOAKING WET. What the...? It had probably stopped raining within the hour. What was he doing out in the rain? Why didn't he come inside?

In addition to that, two dogs pooped in the house. One was Kizzy for sure. I think the other was Secret. So basically I had two dogs that wouldn't go outside and one dog that wouldn't come inside? But the poo was by the front door, which is right next to where I had the anti-bark device located. Sigh. I have no idea. At any rate, I unhooked the battery and have not used it the remainder of the week. That said, it seems to have left a lasting impression because they have remained pretty quiet without it. On Tuesday Secret still didn't spend much time in the living room, but by yesterday (Wednesday) things seemed to be back to normal with regard to where everyone spent their day.

So.... I've noticed some things while watching Kaiser this week. I noticed that he seemed to be doing his tail chasing behaviors a bit more than usual again. I also noticed him checking out his hind end quite a bit. Yesterday he was doing it a LOT. Knowing we have a trial coming up this weekend, I decided it would probably be a good idea to get him in to have his anal glands expressed before we left. Aside from his abscess in 2011, Kaiser has not had any issues with his anal glands, but I figured we should at least get it checked out. I was hoping for a Thursday appointment since I had to work at Petco on Wednesday, but they didn't have anything so I ended up taking a 4:00 appointment and running home between jobs.

Thank goodness I did! I got home and pulled up Kaiser's tail to have a look and whoa, yeah. That's not good. It hadn't broke open yet like with our last experience, but it was very red, very swollen, and very angry looking. We left early for the appointment because I figured this was going to be more than just a tech appointment now.

They took him back to see if they could get him emptied out the normal way, but no such luck. They got one side, but the other was just too impacted. I ended up leaving him at the clinic and calling my dad to have him pick Kaiser up around 5:00. I ran home and grabbed the BiteNot collar that we had from Kizzy's spay just because nobody would be home to watch him and I didn't want Kaiser going at his rear end without anyone to supervise him. Then I drove really, really fast and still managed to make it to work one minute before 5:00.  ;o)

As if I didn't feel bad enough about leaving him home alone while going through this ordeal, he made sure to make me feel even worse when I got home. He was just miserable. Pretty much nothing seemed to make him feel better and he acted like he didn't want to come near me. He was making the most pathetic noises... I knew that the clinic had given him pain meds before sending him home, but I ended up giving him a tramadol before bed in hopes that it would help all of us sleep. I also did the first of many warm compresses, which seems to be what helps him the most.

This morning he was still being pretty pathetic. We all got up at the usual time and I gave him more aspirin and tramadol and another warm compress. I decided to stay home and hang with him today so that I could do several more warm compresses and hit him up with more meds midday. Hey, I figure parents use sick days for their kids, so I'm using one for my poor little dog. Our vet said that there was no reason he couldn't do agility this weekend so long as he is comfortable, so it was definitely in my best interest to do whatever I could to get him past this initial discomfort as quickly as possible.

The good news is that we have had much improvement as the day has gone on! We did MANY warm compresses and we aren't really getting any discharge anymore, so that's great. It's also looking less red, which is also good. Around midday he actually started carrying his tail up again while trotting around outside. He also pooped, which I imagine must still hurt like the dickens... I left for a couple of hours to go do some shopping that I planned to do after work today (I got a new computer for school, breaking it in right now!) and when I came home he was pretty much acting like normal. He got another warm compress and tramadol with dinner. He'll get another compress and an aspirin before bed and then we'll do it all again before we leave in the morning.

Fingers crossed that we are past the painful stuff. We hit him up with the antibiotic shot that stays in the system for several days, so that should be doing its thing from the inside out. Obviously if he acts like he doesn't want to run tomorrow I won't make him, but I think he'll be good to go by then.

Just when I thought all of my vet bills were done until December when Secret has to go in next...