August 19, 2013

Today we start A.J.’s third round of antibiotics since we adopted him three and a half weeks ago. Today we went to the vet again because he needed his parvo booster, plus his cheatgrass abscess wasn’t healing up very well. We saw Dr. Frost, the same vet we saw last time. He debated for some time on whether to give the abscess more time or to go back in and clean it out and make sure the cheatgrass really is gone. He finally decided to go back in because the wound was still oozing a little and A.J. was still licking at it, which means it’s still bothering him. Oh yeah, A.J. also has a hot spot on his cheek. Initially I thought he had rolled in something, but when I tried to clean it he freaked out a little, and even after I cleaned it it seemed to come back, so I thought maybe it was oozing something. I was right. Apparently he really freaked out when Dr. Frost tried to shave around the hot spot – A.J. doesn’t like having his face touched. Something else we need to work on.

He was still pretty drowsy when we got home. He made no attempt to jump out of the car. Greg heard heard us come home so he met us at the door. A.J. walked in, leaned up against him, and collapsed at his feet right inside the door. He fell asleep right there and didn’t move again for about 15 minutes. The good thing there was that I took advantage of his sleepiness and numb foot to get his sock on.

Dr. Frost offered to give us some sedatives for him, because right now we have to watch him around the clock to make sure he doesn’t lick his foot or scratch his face. But I declined. We’ll see if I regret that in a day or two. Or an hour or two.

In the meantime he also gave us some anti-itch medicine. He thinks maybe A.J. has some allergies. If he does, hopefully they’re food allergies. But it’s going to take some time to narrow it down to figure out what the problem really is. I have to watch him closely when he eats different things, and also watch closely as soon as he’s done with his anti-itch medicine in a few days and see if there’s any difference in the amount of scratching and licking he does. Hopefully the anti-itch medicine makes him forget about scratching his face. I’ll be surprised if we’re that lucky.

A good thing happened today. A.J. made the tiniest bit of progress on our walk this morning. We’re working on focus, and having him look at me and pay attention to me rather than freaking out at everything around him. He still reacted to dogs, but the first time we passed one I had him sit until the dog was out of sight. Then I waited until he looked at me before we’d continue our walk. The first couple of dogs we saw it took a full two minutes for him to look at me. The last time it was less than a minute. Yay!