Posts by Foster Dog

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Update January 20, 2011

What a little pill Snickers is.

Or should I say Snickers really hates pills!

After his dental the other day, Dr. Walthall sent home 10 days of oral antibiotics. What a PITA. Snickers has thwarted just about every attempt I've made to get his pills in him...and I've been dosing dogs a good, long time.

Even using a piller this morning, Snickers managed to get the gelatin capsule out. I *think* he get the medicine, but this is still not what I want. He's obviously wise to capsules in foodballs, too, since he's eaten around the pill twice now.

So, the only thing I can figure to do now is open the capsule and dump the medicine into a foodball and give him that. His mouth is still too sore for him to take kindly to me wrenching his jaws open and forcing the pill down, plus it's not a good thing for his mental state (which is overall really good). So, I'm going to try this other way.

Snickers is also making the transition to kibble, which is good. He's also in the process of having his main meal shifted to the evening with everyone else (but Elvis). That will take a few days, but it does seem to be going without a hitch.

The only real problem I'm seeing is a hacking/gagging. I suspect this is a leftover from the rotting teeth and will clear up as the antibiotics take hold. If I don't see a lessening over the weekend, I'll call the clinic on Monday to get some advice. My dachshunds have always done a little bit of this, but Snickers takes it too extremes, and its much "wetter" sounding and goes on for longer periods of time than I'm used to.

His weight is also still about where it was....11.6 today. But it's shifting around. I may need to rethink how much he needs to lose, too. As the weight shifts, I'm seeing some different areas. Last week, he had no ribs. This week, he's got ribs, though they're still pretty well padded. So it may end up that once his infection is cleared up, he's on good food consistently and he gets some exercise, that the diet will only be for him to lose a pound to a pound and a half rather than the two to two and a half pounds I'd thought last week.

Since it was a bit warmer yesterday, all the dogs got a bath, including him. I know he got one last week, but that was mainly to get the newsprint ink off his coat so neither Randall nor I would itch after picking him up. Yesterdays bath was much better. I still need to clean his ears and clip his nails, but I'll do that today or tomorrow.

My only complaint with him is that he's such a comfort seeker he doesn't want to leave the pillow/blanket to go outside. Randall picks him up and carries him when I'm not around (with three other dogs, he needs everyone at the door at the same time, particularly if the weather is bad), but when I'm there, Randall works the door, and I herd Snickers...with varying amounts of success. LOL He will, however, learn to walk to the door...I suspect this will all go smoother once it's warmer and there's no drips of water off the eaves.

It's going to be busy around here for the next couple of days. so I may not get around to another update until sometime tomorrow afternoon or maybe even Saturday.