I want to start this off with saying every single person I’ve spoken to at CSU have been absolutely glorious and I trust them 100% to treat Ellie with compassion and competence. With that said, Ellie was SO ready to go home when I picked her up yesterday. Everything went smooth, and she even made friends with another dog in the trial named Sitka. I was told they curled up together to nap (D’awww). So I have a feeling she was just super overstimulated from being in an active office for 8 hours. At home it’s just me, her, and the cat with a couple people dropping by every few days- super quiet, like super-duper quiet. I wasn’t surprised when we got home she absolutely passed out and wasn’t up for much the rest of the evening. This morning, though, she was still pretty worn out and just seemed a little down. I was worried the new drug (vismodegib, which I have to give to her daily now) might be causing some issues or maybe yesterday she over did it and was really sore or maybe this or maybe that… on and on the way a worry spiral goes.
She didn’t seem to be in pain, she just seemed down so I decided to break the rules and take her to the park to see if maybe she was just depressed/bored and needed a pick-me-up. I loaded her into the car and we took off, she laid down pretty quick, and to my dismay even put her head down and seemed to have no interest in looking out the window. I started to think that maybe this wasn’t the best idea, she must really not be feeling well. But then, we coincidently passed the street where I would usually turn to head to the vets office, and I kid you not a block later her head perked up, and she ended up sitting up and looking around taking in lots of sniffs. I’m pretty sure the poor thing thought she was headed back to the vet! We got to the park, and even though it was technically against the rules we really only walked maaaaybe 75 feet total? Just enough to get to a nice fork in the trail where we hung out for a bit to smell everything and to watch people and other dogs go by. I won’t lie, I was tempted to go farther, because she definitely wanted to go, but common sense persevered- we will get there Ell-Bell, I promise.
It did the trick though, we headed home and she had her head out the window the whole time and just seemed perkier. She’s napping as I type this, no more of that staring into the great abyss eyes. Now is it possible I’m just projecting onto my dog and convincing myself she’s happier? Maybe… but at this point, I’ll take it and I would break the rules again without hesitation.
Awww! Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. We see a lot of dogs perk up after an adventure like this. I don’t think you are projecting at all. Being in nature is good medicine and you did it responsibly at this stage of her recovery. Good job!
Rules were made to be broken, right Ellie! And breaking g this rule was very therapeutic!
Aorry that she thought she was going to the Bet, but so glad she perked up when she really she was goi out in Nature instead.
I’m sure her stay st the Bet did exhaust her, plus the med may have had an initial effect too. You’re doing a great job of overseeing her care.
A d loooooove the pictures! She is jist so darn photogenic. So much personality.
Tha ks f9r the update and especially letting us k ow the trip to the park perked her up.
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
She is ridiculously photogenic, I took pictures of her all the time before all this, now I’m downright insufferable, haha, so there will always be more pictures!
Just testing again….made a post yesterday….. “waiting for moderation”…….and bptoday even that’s disappeared. So let’s see if this “test” shows up
Hey Sally, it keeps making me approve your comments and I don’t know why, so I apologize for the delay! Any idea on how I can have it auto approve?