Well, here is what my parents don’t want me to do. Here is what my doctors don’t want me to do. And here is what my doctors say that if they see me doing, and if they notice my bandages getting wet, they have to bring me to the hospital.

Joey licking his bandages and splint

My doctors and my parents don’t want me licking my bandages.

First of all, licking my bandages may indicate that I’m uncomfortable and that I have an infection. Also, wet bandages may tighten up and cause problems for my circulation.

When my parents see me doing this, the collar that I hate so much has to go on. Then, if my parents have to bring me to the hospital, I have to be examined for signs of infection. I also have to have my bandages changed. Once I chewed up my splint so much the doctors had to make me a completely new splint.

This isn’t the first time I was licking my bandages, by the way.  It is, however, one time that I was caught on camera!

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open-toed splint

I’d like to write a little about my splint. The splint has been off for a few months, but I’d like to write a little about it, and to show a picture of it up close.

First, this is a soft cast splint. It has a little more flexibility and is more comfortable to wear than a hard cast.

The splint was a very important part of my recovery, and so were the instructions about how to care for my splint.

The doctors left the toe open for several very important reasons. First, it allowed air to circulate. Second, it allowed my parents to look for signs of infection.  The doctors tell my parents that if they see my toes are inflamed, they know to get me to the doctor right away.

Another important part of the instructions is to notice if there is a bad odor. That is another sign of infection.  If my parents notice a bad odor, they know to get me to the doctor right away.

Finally, my parents are always looking at me to see if my bandages are wet. If they are wet, they have to bring me to the veterinarian right away.  Wet bandages is not a good thing. And this is another reason why I must wear the bootie or the plastic bag every time I go out, even if just for a moment.

Doctors are very concerned about my developing an infection.  I’ll just be a dog and do what I do, but my parents will be responsible for noticing all the signs of infection.

In the days and weeks immediately following my being hit by the car, my doctor wanted to change my bandages every 2 – 5 days. After that, after the sores were healed, he instructed my parents to bring me in for a bandage change every two weeks.

To find out whether I cooperated with my doctors’ good ideas, please continue reading!

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Here’s our morning routine: Every morning, Phil comes and wakes me up, but we no longer jog. Now we just take a short walk which, to me, is heavenly. As soon as I do my thing, we go back home. We walk slowly. When Jane comes downstairs, she gets me breakfast and makes sure that I eat it. She tries to make my breakfast interesting for me by adding some chicken soup to it. The idea is that in order for me to take my medicine, I have to have eaten first. Sometimes I refuse to eat it.  I stand there, sniff around, look around, look at her, face my food but roll my eyes toward her to see if she’s looking at me, stretch, sniff around again, do anything but eat, and then she says, “Joey, eat your breakfast.” Some people think that dogs don’t speak English, but I understand exactly what she wants from me. She wants me to eat my breakfast.

We have the same routine in the evening, starting with the evening walk with Phil. Either before the walk or after it, Jane feeds me my dinner and tries to make it interesting by pouring some chicken soup into it. If I don’t eat it, she says “Joey, eat. Eat your dinner.” She wants me to eat because I cannot take my medicine on an empty stomach. Some people say that dogs don’t speak English but I understand exactly what she wants from me. She wants me to eat my dinner.

Since I’m not allowed out of the living room, except to take my short walk twice daily to pee and poop, I feel particularly lonely in the evening, when my dad is home from work, but I’m limited to the one room.  Many evenings my parents will come into the living room and sit down on the sofa and talk to each other there, just so that I’m not so alone. I get a little attention, and I feel comforted just listening to them talk to each other, and sometimes to me. Sometimes they bring their dinner into the living room and eat their dinner there.  It is nice to be with my family!

There are other times when I really need my rest (or they really need their rest) and so they say “Joey, go to your bed.”  Once they know I’m lying down in my bed, they will kiss me on the top of my head and give me a pat on my head or gently on my sore belly.  Then they turn out the living room lights and softly say “Good night, Joey.”

What bothers me the most about being wounded is having this cone around my head. Dr. B calls it a collar but I think he’s just being kind.  The “instructions” call it an “Elizabethan collar”. Do I look like my name is Elizabeth?

I don’t understand why I have to have this cone, or collar, around my neck and head. When I walk, it bumps into things. When I eat, it bumps into my food bowl. When I drink, it bumps into my water bowl. I even have to wear it when I sleep.  So why am I wearing it?

I hear my mom and dad are doing it to protect me because I have stitches on my stomach and some medicinal cream on my belly from where my belly scraped along the ground.  The idea is that this cone is supposed to prevent me from licking my wounds, and licking off the medicinal cream, or possibly even to prevent me from biting at the stitches.  My doctors want the stitches and my belly to heal properly.

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A few days ago the FedEx truck pulled up to our home and the man delivered a large carton to my owners. I love when we receive package deliveries, because the delivery men can become my friends, too. But this delivery was different.

First, I wasn’t allowed out of the living room to greet or even see the delivery man. This was a huge frustration to me.

Then, Jane brought the large carton into our home and took out out something made of wood. Next,  she got a screw driver and started working. And working. I wanted to play with her, but she kept working. In addition, I thought she had bought me a new toy, and I let her know that by wagging my tail. But this wasn’t a toy for me.

About one hour later, there was a little wooden gate set up in the doorway to the living room that was too high for me to jump over. I couldn’t push it away, or figure out a way to open its little door. This was a huge frustration for me. I think this time they were too smart for me.

Spending all this time in the living room has, I think, something to do with following “the doctor’s orders”. This spacial limitation is the hardest part about recuperating.

The instructions also tell the distance and way that I am allowed to walk every day.

The way I am walked is a difficult adjustment. Even though I was wounded just a short while ago, I continue to want to run around outside and make friends with the whole, wide, wonderful world; nevertheless, because my dad and mom are following “instructions”, they won’t let me do that anymore.

As I mentioned before, I love to run, and before the accident I would run with my dad early every morning, sometimes in the dark before the sun had even risen. Because we would run so early in the morning way before the first faint lights of neighbors awakening going on, one room at a time, when there aren’t any other dogs or people around, he would allow me to run with without a leash. At those times, I would fly like the wind, with my nose up high, in step with my dad!

Now, we go outside, Dad and I, or sometimes my Mom and I, and sometimes Dad, Mom and I together walk me up the block and back home again, on my lead at all times, and then I have to go back inside.  As soon as I poop, we turn around and go back home.  I wish we could stay out longer, but they’re following the doctor’s orders.

I even have to be on my lead when we go into the back yard because they’re afraid that I’m going to chase squirrels or something. Would I do a thing like that? Absolutely! They know that chasing squirrels is one of my hobbies.  After all, Labrador Retrievers were bred to retrieve small animals such as birds and squirrels that had been hunted for game and for food.  Running after small animals is in our nature.

Sometimes Dad wants me to walk free; at those times, Mom will say to Dad that “We have to follow the doctor’s orders”. Then she says to him, “You want him to be able to run again, right?” She knows that my three toes and my broken ankle need a lot of time to heal, and to heal correctly.   When she says that, I feel alright, because, honestly, I do want to be able to run again. And so does Phil!

In this photo you can get a sense my occasional frustration.

But I’m not complaining!

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Now I’m back home. I’m recuperating. My owners read something called “the instructions” and as far as I can tell, this is something that Dr. B gave them when I was being discharged from the hospital.

The “instructions” rest on the kitchen counter, next to a brown bag that they also brought home from the 24-hour animal hospital. These “instructions” talk about what kinds of medicines I have to take, and when, each day, I have to take them.

For example, every morning my owners give me some medicine, and every evening they give me medicine again. I don’t mind taking the medicine, because “the instructions” say to “Always give after a meal” and that’s fine with me, because I have an opportunity to do another of my hobbies, which is eating.

Jane and Phil talk to each other a lot about these “meds”. I hear Jane saying to Phil, “Did you give Joey his meds this morning?” Or I will hear Phil saying to Jane, “I didn’t feed Joey this morning. Can you give him breakfast and then give him his meds?” I hear my name mentioned a lot these days.  Joey…Joey….Joey…..If you want to see my ears perk right up, just say my name.

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