The DOOM Spaniels

When you've got a weird unpredictable force field floating around your head... but you're still a cocker spaniel. Sniffs are serious business!

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... 💤

A short story, in pictures.

[Image Descriptions: a black and white cocker walks over a red and white cocker, stepping on her, to lay on a pillow beyond her. Closeup on the feet of the black and white cocker stepping on the red and white cocker. An old photo with an exasperated expression on the red and white cocker's face, with text "Seriously?"]

Yvaine the Martini has returned from her ophthalmology follow-up, and the doctor says her eye looks to be healing just as it should at this time.

Still itchy, probably a result of the healing, so cone stays on (until she no longer wants to vigorously rub her face against every available surface).

The vet staff apparently love her, gushed again about what a good girl she is and how she loves everyone. They had given her the whole double handful of baby carrots I sent along with her, between 8:30 dropoff and 11:30 pickup. I thought she might be there all day again... she's not spoiled, oh, no.

Yv chirps, rather piercingly, when she wants to meet people or dogs (or cats, or anything that moves); I am glad they're interpreting that as the friendliness it is instead of finding it annoying.

Peaceful cronching. Sunday Yvaine's eye was too itchy to leave the cone off. (In my experience, itchy comes with healing, and it's nice that it's no longer so tender she won't even think about touching it.) But Saturday, Yvaine still didn't want the eye touched, so she got to have some supervised time out of the cone.

True spaniel elegance: Yv smacks the cone into everything. She's not used to wearing a cone... and she's always clumsy... but I think she also can't see well out of that eye right now. So it was good to be able to have some time out of the cone.

Yvaine's eye is tender and she absolutely doesn't want to touch it, rub it, or scratch it. (Yvaine is the best of the best, though, and comes right to me and tilts her face up when I say "eyedrops!")

She wants to scratch her cheeks and ears, though--carefully--and she cannot curl up in a jellybean with the cone on. Such intense tradegy. So when I am able to actively watch her, Yvaine gets to have the cone off. A lot of that time, I get my shoulder spaniel.

Every so often the cheek itch gets to her, and she starts vigorously polishing her chin. That might rub her eye or get grit into it, so the cone has to go back on :( (At that time, I apply more hydrocortisone. We're still coping with the clipper burn, her skin is really irritated.)

It looks like all the work we've done with "hold this on your head," and particularly with glasses/sunglasses, is going to be extremely useful. Even with the Cone of Shame, our grass is currently right at Yvaine's eye height. (Tractor guy is coming to bushhog as soon as he can fit us in, but...) And as she walks, the grass actually bends over the edge of the cone and whips her in her poor tender shaved face.

Doggles should arrive tomorrow, to protect her eyes and face while outside. Dark lenses will be useful for the pupil dilation from the atropine, too. I don't expect instant acceptance, of course, but the initial groundwork is already well established.

(Yvaine's right eye has been photo edited for all our comfort.)

Yvaine makes the best faces: "I suffer from The Cone." "And I blame you."

Yvaine returns to the ophthalmologist today for urgent surgery. (They insisted she needed the cone overnight to make absolutely sure the eye surface stayed clean until she came back.) Worried. Would like to restart this month from a different save point, please.

(before Tristan got past using the cone)

Yvaine's Portable Furniture (murmuring nonsense while scritching the Spaniels): Yes, you're my little muffin, my little peaches and cream muffin girl, yes you are.

YPF: You're a little ice cream sundae, a little cookies and cream sundae with a floofy whipped cream topping,[*] yes you are.

Tristan's Fetch and Tug Buddy: In a bowl.

...

[*] yes, thank you, @jakemyboy that's all you :D

Yvaine is sweet and cute and precious, but golly Tristan is pretty.

Yesterday evening the last of the dissolving stitches rubbed off so even if Tristan licks, he can't injure himself. We're done with the cone!

... I've never had a dog with ears like his in a cone before. I really, really should have trimmed his ears before we put on the cone. They couldn't escape messiness and they couldn't dry. Now they're yuck *and* tangled. I'm working on it. I've *been* working on it. It's going to take days more.