Jake's surgery

Well, Jake survived his "procedure". He is now a neutered pup. Neutral pup? He has been rendered harmless to all female dogs.

His wonderful vet did such a great job. He calmed me, reassured me that I was doing the right thing, listened to my questions....oh, and he did a great job with Jake, too. When I picked Jake up that afternoon they brought him out with the funny little cone head thing around his neck. He warned me that when he starts to walk, if he held his head too low, the cone would catch on the floor. Basically like stubbing his toe only he would be stubbing his neck. I put him down on the floor and he looked miserable. I was sure he was accusing me in his eyes and I could swear I heard him sigh like, "ok, let's get out of here before you let them do anything else to me." Then he took 2 steps and stubbed his neck. Poor baby. On the drive home, he did something I've never seen before. He stood on the floorboard and put his head on the front seat and dozed off. Oh well, at least he wasn't looking at me with those eyes anymore. The vet said I could take the cone off as long as we were around to make sure he didn't lick his stitches (ewww) so I took it off and he slept. Yup, just slept and slept. We were going to let him sleep in our room so I could listen for him so he was nice and comfortable in the bathroom, just sleeping away....until midnight. Then he was awake. He wanted in, he wanted out, he wanted to play (sort of) then he wanted in again. He wanted to go out and potty but couldn't lift his leg or squat so he just stood there and let it go. I would have laughed at the sight of it if it hadn't been 2 in the morning. I gave up and decided I would just stay up with him. I had begged Jeff for this dog and everytime The Dog does something or needs something or destroys something, I figure I had better tend to it. Jeff isn't one to say "I told you so" or "why did we get a dog" (he's much too nice) but, like Jake, I can see it in his eyes. So I stayed up until 4:30 am when Jake finally fell back to sleep. I crawled in the bed and slept until 6.

Then it was time to get up for work and get everyone out the door. Before I left, I put the cone on Jake and put him in the bathroom. I forgot something in the closet and went back in just about 2 minutes later and Jake already had the cone off and was dragging it around the bathroom. Abigail and I tried putting it back on again, a little tighter this time and closed the door. I waited and listened at the door and could hear him moving around a bit. I opened the door and he had it off again. Since he was still bandaged pretty good, I just decided to leave it off and see what happened. Hopefully, he wouldn't chew his stitches off. When I got home, he was fine. But the cone quickly became a favorite new chew toy. A very expensive chew toy.

It's been 2 weeks now and I think Jake has finally forgiven me. Did it calm him down? Maybe a bit. He's not any smarter so he still is getting into things. Like...everything. Sooooo, he starts obedience school Thursday night. We'll see how that goes. Stay tuned.