Ok so I’ve been avoiding this Blog because it’s long and painful.
But I must write it because it is blogworthy.
Sterling got hurt last week.
During my trip to Texas. Here’s the story.
I decided it would make Jana’s week a bit easier (since she worked each night I was gone) if I could take the puppy out of the equation for her.
To do that I booked Sterling for two days of “Doggy Day Camp” at her most favorite place in all the world. She was to be kenneled there in between the two days.
Honestly Sterling LOVES this place.
Those of you that have met Sterling know that she’s a little hyper… and a bit high strung.
Well you should see here when you pick up your coat and ask her “Wanna go to camp?”
She goes NUTS!
It’s really quite adorable.
So I felt pretty good about the situation.
Unfortunately something happened while she was there.
She got a “puncture wound” of some sort.
She was taken to the emergency vet and they had to operate!
It was quite a sight to come home and see my beautiful dog wearing a cone…
with her side shaved…
and stitches…
and tubes coming out of her.
Apparently what ever impaled her went deep enough to pierce the muscle and her insides were filling up with fluid.
They had to put a big rubber tube through her abdomen to drain it.
And it had to stay there to keep it from filling up again.
She looked like a miserable wreck.
Now if that was the whole story I’d pretty much be ok with things.
I mean she’s ok.
And hey accidents happen when you take a dog to play with 40 other dogs.
But the place that had her didn’t handle things very well.
They NEVER called us.
NEVER.
We called them to ask them a question and the told us she was on her way to the vet.
We never heard back.
We called them to see how she was doing (they should have called us).
That’s when we found out she had to be put under and operated on.
Then they said that the vet told them there was no way it could have been a bite or claw.
Then they tried to say that it must have happened before they got her.
TOTALLY UNPROFESIONAL.
Their argument was the vet told them that there was so much fluid that it must have be building up for hours.
Well they had had her for hours.
And it got worse.
We called the vet that operated on Sterling.
She said “I NEVER said it wasn’t a Dog bite. It CERTIANLY COULD BE. All I said was I couldn’t say for sure it was. There was only one hole. We assumed it was bite because that’s what THEY told us when they called it in.”
She said “I’m sorry we didn’t call you before we operated but we didn’t even know who you were. The girl that brought her in didn’t even know the dogs name.”
Then we talked to OUR vet.
She said those things can fill with fluid in minutes.
So we paid a visit to the owner of the camp/kennel.
I wasn’t pleased and generally let him have it.
“Why weren’t we called when she was hurt?”
“Why weren’t we called when she was put under?”
“Why weren’t we called when she was out of surgery?”
“Why wasn’t the vet given our contact numbers?”
“Why were we told that the vet said it couldn’t have been a dog bite when the vet told us the opposite?”
“Why were we told that the timeline indicated that it happened at home when our vet said it could have gotten that bad in minutes?”
“Why were we told that it was a small but deep puncture when the vet said it was dime to nickel sized?”
“Why were we told that she may have been hurt by an ink pen or a lilac bush when this dime to nickel sized wound went an inch and a half deep and pierced muscle all the way to the sub-q tissue?”
Then I said:
“Listen where do you people get off telling me that it had to happen at home? That’s really sleazy. I woke up at 5:30 and handed her to you. If you can notice a wound in a room full of 40 dogs I would have noticed at home or in the car.”
And finally:
“You know we know the risks of putting our dog in a room full of other dogs. You could have told me that Sterling was mauled by a Pitbull and as long as I felt that you guys did all you could, and kept us in the loop, and was straight up with us… we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But it really feels like you guys are trying to shift blame and play games.”
Well it was a long conversation
We left feeling a little bit better about things… but it’ll be awhile before we go back.
Wow I wish the story ended there…
This (besides giving sterling a new bad ass look) required some serious medication for the puppy.
Sterling was pretty quiet the next night… staring at walls a lot.
Turns out my neighbor and I miss-read the instructions.
One evening Jana and I realized that in the past 24 hrs. Sterling had received 2.5 times the appropriate dosage.
Poor little puppy was high as a kite.
So Jana called the 24-hr. “I think I may have killed my pet” hotline.
They said “Bring her in now. It could cause liver and kidney failure, not to mention ulcers and GI bleeds.”
Good grief.
So Ted, Leslie, and I were off to the all night animal hospital.
The procedure was to give Sterling a heaping helping of activated charcoal.
It would make her puke everything up and “Bind” to what ever was in her system so it could pass.
Lovely.
Well Sterling’s week got a little worse that night, but eventually it was over and we were on our way home.
Our vet said they played it safe which was good but we had nothing to worry about.
One day of over dosing at that level wasn’t serious. It would take weeks. We had her run blood tests to be sure, and Sterling is ok.
Of course she hates the cone.
She can’t get used to it. She has no peripheral sensory perception, and can’t get used to making wide turns.
She also can’t seem to grasp the fact that it extends beyond her nose.
So she’s knocking everything over, running into walls and doors, and running into people.
God bless her though she’s been a trooper.
I’m gonna get her a special toy this Christmas.
So maybe I’m a little emotional today.