BayWing

Farli, Ritka and I visited our regular vet today. Farli was checked because the Rimadyl is no longer controlling her arthritic pain. The most painful part for Farli is the transitioning from standing to sitting. Farli will go back for a full orthapedic exam next week. I brought home some Tramadol HCl which Dr. Adams said could be combined with the Rimadyl. We will see how that works.

Dr. Adams thought that Ritka looked good – including how the sore on her side is healing. We won’t know for a while if the hair will grow back. Ritka is still eating well and is up to 41.4 lbs. Stools are formed but soft. The folks at the vet school said it should take a few weeks to heal so I think she is probably progressing fine.

Way back on 24 August Diana Foster wrote to offer her “Neck’s Best Thing Collar” for Ritka as an alternative to the cone head look. Originally I did not think we would need the collar as the cone was to keep Ritka from chewing out her IVs and feeding tube. Then Ritka started chewing and licking the hematoma sore on her side. Diana had one on hand in her first aid kit for her dogs. There was a flyball workshop the week-end after Ritka came home from the Vet Med Teaching Hosptial. I would have gone to help with the workshop, but I felt I needed to stay home with Ritka those first few days. So Diana took it to practice. Steve O’Donnell picked it up at practice and delivered to where my husband (Wesley) works at NCSE www.ncseweb.org. What a great flyball team to help look after each and every dog.

Ritka has been wearing her “Neck’s Best Thing Collar” as a “vest” to keep her wound covered. The vest has a soft fuzzy outside with non-stick foam ribs on inside. The ribs (or strips of foam) keep it stiff in one direction and flexible in the other. It can be easily cut to fit for a neck or leg brace as shown below from the web site:
http://www.sitstay.com/store/health/med1.shtml#EQNBT

Anyway our modification seems to keep the vest from touching the wound.
Wesley and I cut out some of the foam and used the cut out pieces to to make stand-offs to try to keep the “vest” from touching the wound. Hard as Ritka will lay on that side. The inside surface is slick and sealed which makes it easy to wash, but hard to get glue or tape to stick to it. The cut surface does absorb stuff, so we cut slits where we wanted the glue to adhere (contact/rubber cement). Below is a photo of our modification:

Wesley also made a chest strap from velcro from the hardware store. The velcro that comes with the collar was not long or sturdy enough. Below, Ritka modeling the collar turned vest:

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 12:57 am by Wesley R. Elsberry and is filed under Dogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.