Riley is Going to Elementary School

Yes, you read that title right…and no, it’s not a dog training class.  Riley is going to the school Grandma works at to visit with some of the students.  Grandma is a full-time secretary there.  We’re going to my friend’s class (my friend teaches 4th grade).  I also happened to attend this school from Kindergarten to 6th grade and then attended the affiliated high school across the street from 7th to 12th grade.  I go visit with Grandma and all of my teacher friends every once in a while but Riley’s never been.

We have a therapy visit scheduled at the nursing home on Friday and the school is just down the street so we’re going to stop by after our nursing home visit while Riley’s still got all of her therapy gear on.  I plan on talking a little bit about Riley and therapy dogs and showing some of her tricks and commands she knows and then letting the kids pet her.  We may end up stopping by more classrooms as I’m sure the other teachers won’t be able to resist Riley’s gorgeous face…haha!  🙂

I took Riley’s bandage off last night and she was sooooo good!  Well, she doesn’t want me to tell you this, but she was distracted by Grandma feeding her treats while I was removing the bandage.  Riley wanted you all to think that she was just a good girl on her own…!  Her nail looks pretty good…kind of gross, but the inside of the nail’s still there (the nail bed), otherwise the rest of the nail is gone.  She’s tried to lick it maybe 2 or 3 times but will stop if I tell her to “leave it.”  That was last night, today she hasn’t really tried to lick it at all.

I tried to get some pictures of it but didn’t get any good ones…  😦  I took one with the flash and one without.  It’s the outside nail on the left in the pictures.

Bad pictures, I know!!  Thanks for reading this long-winded post!  I’m slowly catching up with everyone’s blogs.

Pretty Foot

Riley woke up and was raring to go this morning, in true cattle dog fashion!  She wasn’t quite over the anesthesia when we went to bed last night, so I’m glad to see her back to her non-pitiful self today.

This is the third nail she’s broken off a good portion of (the second one that she’s had to get removed) and her vet said she looked at all of her other nails yesterday and that some of them had grooves or dents in them from where it looked like they had tried to break off but grew back in and repaired themselves.  Riley’s nails taper to a sharp point instead of being one thickness all the way to the end, so the vet said that it could be one reason they’re breaking so easily–because they’re thin at the end.  So I asked what we could do to strengthen her nails…I mean, do we put Sally Hansen on them or what?  We’re going to use an Omega-3 fish oil supplement with EPA and DHA to see if that helps.

The supplement they could sell me at the vet was EicosaDerm by DermaPet–8 oz. for $21.98 (would last 40 days).  I said I wanted to price it elsewhere and I’m glad I did.  I got 32 oz. on Amazon for $31.14!!  Yay, I love finding a good deal (it was marked down from $88.98)!  So we’ll see if that helps, hopefully it will.

Fully alert this morning!

I asked if Riley could go on her nursing home visit on Friday and the vet said yes, as long as she didn’t appear to be in any pain…I’m sure she’ll be fine by then.  The last time she had a nail clipped off like this she was feeling better in just a day or two.  The bandage comes off later today!!

Oh, and sorry I haven’t been around to all of your blogs in a few days–I’ve been doctoring Riley since this weekend.  I will catch up!!

Riley is Home!!

I just got Riley home.  She has a pretty pink bandage on her right front paw.  Her vet, Dr. Hall, said that new nail had started growing in already, so there wasn’t a lot of bleeding.  The bandage can come off tomorrow.  Riley’s still pretty doped up right now.

Dr. Hall said that they put Riley on a stretcher in the recovery area and that they usually put two leashes on them and that they didn’t because she was still pretty sedated.  The vet tech was right beside her at the sink washing dishes and Dr. Hall was across the room typing on the computer with her back to Riley.  Dr. Hall said she heard a tap-tap-tapping on the floor and that it didn’t really register with her.  Then she saw Riley stumbling towards the door!  Riley was trying to get out of there.  She said Riley knows the way out and that she was making a break for it.  Crazy girl!

Brooke (Riley’s bff at the vet) said she went and saw Riley before they sedated her and that she didn’t pee on the floor when she greeted her (she usually pees out of excitement when she sees Brooke).  She did, however, pee two little drops when we were saying goodbye to Brooke on the way out the door.  Some things never change.  I told Brooke her record is unbroken!

That wet spot on the couch is from where Riley was drooling, not where she was licking.  She hasn’t licked *yet.*