Whhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...............better living through chemistry. :)
Penny is feeling much, much better. She's had three meals today, and when she finished up, she was looking for more. This is really good news. Right now, she weighs 7.6 pounds, and I'd like to see her with another pound or pound and a half on her. Since she's being a downright pig, I'm hoping we'll reach that weight soon.
She's still eating the soup I made yesterday coupled with some Pedigree chicken and rice. This morning, the soup was pureed, but at dinner (5:30), it wasn't, and she had no problem with it. Everything was chopped pretty fine when I fixed it, but still, I wasn't sure if it would give her problems or not. Nope. Ate it without a second glance.
After *our* dinner, she went outside with Haley and Skeeter, and when they came in and had their plate of goodies to clean, she had another tablespoon of canned dog food. I wasn't sure she'd be hungry, but she polished it off.
What I have learned is she has utterly no clue that she should eat in her crate. When I put her in it this evening during feeding time, she dumped her bowl. So for now, I'm going to feed her loose. I don't like doing that, but she eats when she's out of the crate, and right now that's the most important thing. I can transition her to crate feeding later.
Tomorrow, I'll plan on at two meals and an after dinner "snack." With any luck, the weight should come on pretty easily.
You can tell she's also feeling MUCH better. She's been quite active today. Tail wagging any time you say her name (and she's pretty well picked up on the fact that she's "Penny") and she goes from me to Randall and back depending on what room she wants to be in (we have our computers in separate rooms). Right now she's in here with me, but I think where she REALLY would like to be is on the sofa in the living room. You have to watch her like a hawk because if she can get in there, that's where she's going to be. I told Randall we're going to have to start correcting that behavior now. It's not the getting up I worry about so much as the getting down.
She's had no accidents today, and when you ask her if she wants to go outside, she heads for the back door. The way she acts makes me think she may have had a dog door, but I don't use them, so she's got to rely on us to let her out. Since we're around all day, and we were used to very frequent bathroom breaks for Elvis, there's no problem dealing with that for her.
All in all, I couldn't be more pleased with the response I'm seeing from her. I clipped her front nails, but she's still exhibiting a bit of stiffness in her left front leg. Nothing bad, but I'm hoping that now that she's eating, I can add fish oil and it will help. If not, we'll go another route. And I'll tackle her back nails and clean up her feet when she's feeling a bit better, since she'll have to be upside down for some of that, and her breathing isn't quite ready for that.
I've got to play catchup here at home tomorrow, so I may only get one update done unless something significant happens.
