It's All About the Chompers

We're a couple of days post surgery and teeth cleaning. Her teeth were pretty clean from daily attempts at brushing, but they are a bit more sparkly. (I don't think I can justify calling it actual brushing because I don't do a very thorough job.) The front, lower incisor has been removed and that particular part of the ordeal took a little less than a half hour The good news is after taking x-rays of the rest of her teeth, my vet felt the lower canine, premolar and molar were still okay (no pulp exposed) and therefore a root canal or more invasive surgery elsewhere in Bella's mouth was unnecessary.  Woohoo!

Bella is taking two drugs for four days:

• Clindamycin (150 mg) every twelve hours (antibiotic)
• Carprofen (100 mg) every 24 hours (anti-inflammatory)

She was pretty woozy the first night and not quite up to snuff yesterday. Today, we both agree, she's still a bit subdued and I think that's from the drugs. She's also pretty plugged up, poor girl.

She's to be on soft food for a week, so I've cooked up some burger, brown rice, pureed pumpkin and wheat bran for her. She thinks it's pretty darn good! We're getting around the morning "Go Find" by substituting Pup-peronis for biscuits. Our morning routine is to get my morning coffee, I hide, Bella has to find me, my husband delivers the caffeine. Upon discovery of me (hard to find clever spots to hide in a small house), he takes Bella outside for a series of tricks and then she gets a biscuit. BIG excitement. Because of the soft food requirement, the biscuit is a no go...hence, Pup-peronis to the rescue!

The tough part is no toys. No toys?!? Bella is a professional chewer! Life without toys to chew up is like no life at all. We were going to dog-sit her half sister, Molly, this weekend, but were advised against it as the two dogs play hard and Bella always chews on sweet Molly's ruff. So I'm not too disturbed if the drugs are slowing Bella down. It's keeping her from being completely bored out of her gourd.

It good be worse. Bella's best friend, Amber, has just gone through a second bout of leg surgery (torn ligament) and has to be crated for eight weeks. I can't imagine keeping a dog sequestered for that long. Even Lucy was able to move around fairly soon after her back surgery even though longer trips (up and down stairs or hills) were limited for several months. We're going to bring a frozen, stuffed Kong over to Amber's. What are doggie friends for, eh?