I'm sure you have been sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for a veterinary update. "Is Pluto still sick?" you are thinking. "When was the last time Beauty barfed?" And I have answers!
I checked Pluto on Sunday afternoon and his swollen gland didn't seem any smaller, but it felt softer. And irregular. I had no idea what this indicated. Yesterday I felt a little poorly myself and didn't get out to see him. But today I went out, and the gland was down to about 1/3 the size it had been on Sunday. Yay! Although, after I kissed Pluto on the nose and accidentally got some snot in my mouth, I made a mental note that he has a little sinus drainage. (Blech. Try to get *that* taste out of your mouth. Not easy. And me without any Drano.) I sent off an email to the vet letting her know the gland is shrinking, and that he had snot. Though she didn't get the gory details, lucky her. Aren't you glad you read so you know all this stuff?
The dog is feeling *much* better. Better than she has in a long time. So much so that she is turning into a Monster Dog. If you've never had a pet be sick for a long time, be thankful. But if you have, then you know that after they start to feel better, they can be kind of poorly behaved. Beauty has started knocking down the pet gates. JD attached one as tightly as he could and I still came home to find it on the floor. So for now, the dog has free access to the cats' room. I've put the catfood up on a dresser (after some concern about whether or not Nazca could make it up there, it appears that he is not starving to death) and so far the dog has not climbed up there. She is, however, eating cat tootsie rolls to her heart's content. Which, gross. But not fatal. And they may supply some probiotics.
Unfortunately she is also hassling me nonstop for food. For a long time she had to be persuaded to eat. No longer. And she will lie and say she needs to go out to pee just to get me to the kitchen. I can't ignore her because the OTHER thing she is doing is peeing in the house. We knew she would when she started on steroids, but now she isn't drinking as much and she really doesn't need to. Now she's doing it because she wants to. At least she isn't leaving huge puddles. She's just marking spots. And, of course, we don't really have much nice stuff so in the long run it doesn't make much difference, but it aggravates the heck out of me. I mean, I knew we'd have to replace that rug. If there were any question before, there wasn't after I ground silicone caulk into it. But MAN it irks me that a formerly housetrained dog is piddling in my house. She doesn't even wait for me to leave! This morning she did it while I was getting dressed!
So. My dog is feeling good (no barfing, much less sadness and pain) but she is going to drive me insane. I guess that lands on the positive side of matters. Barely.
