OneGuyFromBarlick

In a local garden centre yesterday I saw a big display of the `vest' type harnesses I mentioned above. They were of various shapes and sizes and ranged from about £15 to £20. A search on the web produced this site: Doggy Amour
Also this zany video...LINK

They have lots of dog and cat accessories down in Aldi at the moment in the special buys.

Thanks to you all. Big lump of hard pus came out of Jack's wound yesterday and it looks much cleaner and healthier now. I had to get hold of it and break it out, a tiny bit of blood but that's good. He is up to date on ABs. He's had his AB and is snoring in his chair. I am much happier about the wound now and I think Gillian will be as well tomorrow morning when I see her.
He's on his collar for the foreseeable future, will look at harnesses later......

All is looking good. The wound is deep, clean and has a bright red colour in the bottom. I have given it a salt water irrigation this morning and we see Gillian at 10:10. I am hoping for a good mark for my homework. What I want to know is how long do I go on keeping it infused with salt and water.... She may decide that it is clean enough to stitch, we'll see what happens and I will report....

Gillian was delighted with the wound, gave me a Gold Star and we have decided to take the long route, irrigate once a day with salt and water and leave it to heal from the bottom, it's very deep, down into the underlying flesh. The serum which is filling it up will give the perfect healing environment and protect it from infection. If we stitch we could lock infection in. This will take about 4 weeks. I go to see her again next Thursday for a review of progress and more ABs if she thinks that's the right way. All I have to do is keep the site clean and generally care for him.

Jack and Mick were playing with his ball yesterday during their visit and apart from the hole on his back you couldn't tell there was anything wrong with him. Susan was amazed at the depth of the wound. As Gillian said yesterday, his powers of recuperation are quite amazing and I told her that I had always believed that a dog had the best chance if its grub was clean and nutritious. He is living off minced steak at the moment and it shows. In case you think this is expensive, it costs less than a fiver a week. Reckon up the cost of crap tinned dog meat and draw your own conclusions.....



Here he is as I write, not a lot wrong there!

He looks like he knows where he belongs, is well cared for and happy to be there.
Aaww.

You could be right Cathy and I hope so. Clear routines, good grub and TLC. I can do no more.... He is in good nick this morning, so far so good!

Once again, so far so good. Jack's wound is clean and not irritating him. All his other functions and routines are back to normal. I don't see how he could be doing any better in the circumstances. The mistake could be to relax my guard. I shall take care not to do this....

Keep up the sausages....

This is an update on Buster, our 1 year old Munsterlander. What a year it has been! He arrived with a slightly gippy tummy for which all the litter had been prescribed antibiotics and because we had travelled 200 miles or more, we took him home.

Firstly he has never been ill, but the tummy persisted, or rather the mousse textured you know what persisted. Each time it became worse, we reverted to chicken and rice and started again, we had quickly identified wheat intolerance and cut that from his diet. We tried raw feeding and each and every thing we could think of, giving each time to restore his gut but to no avail, and so we kept reverting to chicken and rice and pre-biotics to maintain gut flora at particular occasions.

It turns out that he has various intolerances, chicken being the main one and rice another. That does not make feeding easy! Beef kibble with no cereal filler, porridge oats which he is fine with and raw mince is what we are on now.

Training - Buster is a bright dog, too bright for me and quickly found me to be a loving but crazy mother who he could make squeak and fling her arms about just by nipping and mouthing. Sharp first dentition made my arms appear as though I had been self harming, the scars are fading now.

Walking - can be a trial some days, especially if we try anything new. The short version of the story is that we are taking him back to a good trainer and we hope we can walk Honey at the same time.

Personality wise - he is great! A good 37 kg lap dog and nibbler of ears. He is quick and willing and loves his walks through and into out bit of forestry. He didn't like his swimming lesson, he was nervous, so we will try that again this summer. He should enjoy it, they do generally as a breed. I will try that photo uploading thing later. I rarely succeed.

Oh wow, wish I hadn't asked!! you love him though?

Absolutely and unconditionally!

Julie, if you can't get your head around the gallery for your pictures put them up as attachments to your post.

Below the post editor you will see two tabs - Options and Attachments. Click the Attachments tab.

Click Add Files then browse to where your images are stored and upload them. Repeat as many times as you have files. They will appear as filenames in the Attachment tab. You can add a comment to them if you wish, this will appear below the image when posted.

Place your cursor in the post where you want to insert the image and then click Place Inline against the file you want to insert.

That's it, when you submit your post they will display as images like the one below. Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

I must be lucky with my dogs Julie, never had a problem with stomachs or maintaining a firm stool. Have you tried him on grilled sausages? You'd be surprised how cheap they are compared to other dog foods, especially the 'Economy' brands.
Isn't it strange how some dogs are getting the same eating disorders as some humans......

I think Jack's back was itching last night, he had a job settling down. I am only irrigating the wound with salt water once a day in the mornings. It seems to relieve the itch so I'll start doing it in the evening as well. The wound is looking good, a much deeper shade of red and nowhere near as deep. I think the healing from the bottom has started sooner than I expected.

I was getting a bit perturbed yesterday by the state of Jack's wound, it was ugly and looked horrible. This morning after an early morning irrigation with salt solution and half an hour walking in the rain, the outer crust had softened a bit and when I rubbed him down to dry him I did me best to do as much as possible on the wound without distressing him. It worked and the wound looks a lot better, a lovely deep red colour and tighter. We go to see Gillian this morning at 9AM and he has had the last of his antibiotics. I suspect she will be pleased and will give him another ten day course. I shall report later.

Am I right in thinking that because of the position of Jacks wound he couldn't get to it and therefore help to heal himself as animals do, but with your towel rubbing , you probably did some of that for him?
Animals have some sort of cleansing enzymes (?) in their saliva, don't they?

Quite right Cathy, its between his shoulder blades and he can't get at it to scratch or lick so I have to do it for him.....

I've been following Jack's recovery, maybe I didn't make that clear in what I wrote. Anyway I'm looking forward to hear what todays results are.

I realise that Cathy and value it.
Gillian is delighted with his progress, she agrees the wound is tightening up and healing up remarkably fast. I pointed out that this was because of my nursing! She agreed and trimmed the hairs round the wound and the crust on the edges, it looks a lot tidier now.. Jack wasn't phased at all. His weight has gone up 1lb in the last ten days, he's at his normal weight of 22lbs now so I've got him back on track. I told Gillian it's the sausages. (Just cooked another bunch!) He's settled in his chair now (after yet another sausage for being a good lad). He's on antibiotics for the next ten days and we see Gillian again next Thursday so she can check on him.

That's good news.

Sounds very positive Stanley.

All good news for Jack