Despite our best efforts, Gwyn is just not drinking enough water in this heat. She got a little nauseated Sunday afternoon, but still had pink gums and instant capillary refill time. So I redoubled my efforts to get her to drink in this e-collar in this heat. Aaaand I was unsuccessful. As of Monday morning, Gwyn started *gasp* REFUSING TREATS, and her gums were a little pale with a slightly increased CRT. So Gwyn got bundled into the car to visit the emergency department.

When we went back for the exam... Gwyn stayed relaxed while the vet checked her over, had NORMAL heart & respiration rates, even while the vet checked her (still ouchy) surgical site! I was astounded and alarmed; obviously Gwyn has not become chill with strangers in the seven days since she was last at the hospital. But... we couldn't find a reason for it, either. I was worried some underlying illness might be the reason she wasn't drinking enough, or something? But no, all that showed on her bloodwork was the dehydration. Which was great!

So Gwyn got fluids, and we went merrily exhaustedly home, and she's been asleep for four hours, which is also not like her. Tomorrow, I try to convince her to drink enough, again, and worry that there's something wrong that the blood tests didn't show. Again.

Heat index values from 108F to 110F (42.2C to 43.3C) today. This is a terrible time for a cone, much less cone plus snood, even a snood made of lycra and mesh. They're preventing heat from radiating and collecting more when outside; this is miserable.

I'm taking the snood off when Gwyn is resting, to help cool off. It looks like an earsplosion.

I have two of these snoods for her ears, so I can take one off each time she gets wet food and rinse it. Something is getting in there, whether it's food or water, or drool, or dew... the first one I took off *was* wet. Hopefully when she's feeling a little more like herself I can clean & brush out her ears, too, but right now she's still tender and doesn't want her usual amount of cuddling & cooing. Just the cuddling.

The tech going over our discharge on Monday said that, during her procedure, every person who came in immediately finger-combed her hair into a little spike, cooed over how cute she was, and combed her hair flat, just for someone else to come in and do it again 😄 I admit that's a more or less constant occupation around the DOOM Castle as well. The little tufties just cry out for twiddling.

Guinevere had her Bottom Surgery... Surgery on her Bottom (anal gland removal) on Monday; it went great. She seemed to be doing well at the vet, but as she relaxed on the way home she began to pant and whine. Once again, she was simply too tense around strangers for them to evaluate her pain level, unfortunately. We returned to the vet, got her more pain meds, and Dronk Guinevere says... 💤

Tristan's ears got really awful in the cone after he was neutered. Now that I know that's a problem, I can try to make sure I clean Gwyn's ears while enconed and so on... but also? SNOOD.

We are practicing while we have time to adjust a little. This should even help with tolerating the Drying Bathrobe of Disgrace, because they don't feel like they can turn their heads in a hood; the lycra and mesh snoods should help them figure this out.

SNOOOOOD.