Bailey's Progress Report

Last weekend, Josh's parents were in town. Bailey was very well behaved while they were here. I was very proud of her. After everyone left, we decided to take Bailey to the dog park. This was her first trip to a real dog park. We had a small one at our apartment, but there were rarely other dogs there. When we first got to the dog park there were only 2 other dogs there. I was pretty disappointed. One of them was a small dog who didn't like Bailey sniffing him. He was pretty mean to her but she handled it very well. Other dogs started coming in and eventually there were several there. Bailey really hit it off with a huge black lab. He played rough but she's a tough pup. They knocked over the water bowl and got SO dirty. She ran and ran and ran. She was completely exhausted! It was nice. Haha.

Dirty face!

Knocked out after playing at the dog park.

Bailey got spayed Thursday. I felt so bad for not being able to feed her breakfast :-/ I dropped her off Thursday  morning and picked her up after work. She was so pitiful! She got sick twice on the way home and again once we got home. She didn't eat well at all for the first day or so. She looked so lost and confused when she came home. It's been really easy to get her to take her pain medication. All I have to do is put a little peanut butter on it. The bad thing is it makes her really thirsty. We've been giving her more water than usual to keep her hydrated. She has had several accidents since she's been taking the medicine. She isn't doing a very good job at all of letting us know she needs to go out. Hopefully this is just the medicine. She'll be finished with her medicine in a few days and I'll be SO glad. We did get some good news. The Dr. wasn't able to find her hernia! It healed up by itself. I haven't noticed it sticking out in well over a month, but I asked them to look for it anyway. That saved us a little bit of money.

This is Bailey's incision today. There are no external sutures, just the liquid stuff. The small green mark below it is a tattoo (with some excess ink, Josh won't let me clean it off yet). Josh was anti-tattoo, but I was OK with it. It's just a precaution. It's just in case she is ever separated from us. Obviously, she should be scanned to see if she is chipped. In that case, we would find her. This could potentially not happen though. There is a possibility someone may try to spay her. When I worked a the vet through high school, this did happen a few times. Someone finds a female dog and decides they will get them spayed. The vet will look for a scar, but sometimes, there's not a visible one. The vet opens the dog just to find out she's already spayed. I would hate for my baby to go through this again if it's not necessary. So, while we have taken every precaution possible to make sure she isn't separated from us, and if she is that she'll be reunited with us, this is a small price to pay for peace of mind. Josh is fine with it now.

My sister was in town this weekend and the guy she's dating brought his Jack Russell Terrier with them. I was worried about Bailey trying to play too much with her and hurting herself. Luckily she's a small dog, so she can't really get rough with Bailey. Thursday night, Bailey mostly just followed her around, slapped around at her a little and tried to lay down on her. Friday, she was more to her old self. They've been playing really well together all weekend and Bailey hasn't been jumping or running much, which is what I was mostly worried about. Not to say they didn't chase each other around the coffee table a few times, but Bailey was pretty good at taking a break when she needed to.

Tug of War

She's still not 100%. She's definitely taking longer naps than usual. I know she'll bounce back before we even know it.

Other than the accidents while on her pain medication, Bailey has done pretty well with potty training. She didn't have any accidents at all while Josh's parents were in town. That is an accomplishment in itself. For whatever reason, Bailey is much more likely to have accidents when we have visitors. She did have one after we got back from the dog park on Labor Day. She woke up from a long nap and immediately squatted. I don't know if she even realized where she was yet. After that she was fine until she was on her meds. I worked the Friday after her surgery, but Josh said she had several accidents. I'm not sure if it was mostly because of her medication or if it was because there was another dog in the house (she had a few accidents too).

Bailey's victims were limited to her own property this week. We took a tennis ball to the dog park with us. When we got back that evening, she pretty much ripped it apart. Maybe it was because it smelled like other dogs in her house? I'm not sure what it was, but she's never showed much interest in that ball until Monday.