THIS CONE COLLAR HAS TO GO!

The picture on the right (or above depending on your computer screen) shows the little incision from surgery (there is a little snow hanging on the stitches).

The little surgery to remove the growth from Abby's leg went very well. In fact, when we arrived at the Vet office at 7:50am on Thursday morning the nice assistant took all of our information, we completed the pre-surgery questionnaire and then we waited for the Vet to come in to see us. Shortly thereafter Dr. Barry arrived in the room and as usual Abby went ga ga over him with kisses etc. He re-examined the growth (he had looked at it just before Christmas)and thought, since she is a fairly calm doggie, he may be able to remove the growth with just local freezing and some careful persuasion. He asked if we could wait because he should only be about 30 minutes. Of course we would wait...silly question! About 30 minutes later she arrived back at the little waiting room we were in prancing along like nothing happened. Dr. Barry said the gals just fed her some little treats and she was calm and cooperative.....not a bit of wonder, she was hungry from fasting for surgery!! We were very glad that he was able to remove this growth with just freezing, much better for Abby. She had a 4 inch shaved area with a 1.5 - 2 inch incision and 4 purple stitches...all this for a growth the size of a small marble. Of course it looked swollen, red and very sore....but little Abby....she was just happy to see us. The Vet asked us if we wanted the mass to be sent to the lab to be analyzed and we said "what do you suggest?" and he said "we keep the sample here for a while so if it grows back, we can send it to the Lab to see what it is and if it doesn't grow back well.." I mean we didn't know what to say? We don't want to incur costs unnecessarily but on the other hand, we wanted to know. The Vet said "it depends on if you are a Type A personality, if this was my wife, the sample would be on the way to the Lab now....me, I would probably just wait". That did it for us...we said "you know we are Type A personalities so send it to the Lab so we will know what it was... or wasn't"! All in the duty of responsible pet ownership... It wasn't until we arrived at the reception area to pay the bill that we realized why he posed the question and let us make up our own mind about requesting the analysis! Cha Ching.....
Anyway, Abby only wore the cone collar for one day, she hated it! Actually she was scared of it and had this absolute look of terror on her face...this is the dog that is scared of garbage bags at the curb on morning walks! We got ready for work and settled her down in the normal morning routine but then....we had to put the cone collar on! When we were leaving the house we heard her start to howl.....like an old hound dog.....howl...the most pitiful howl you have ever heard. You may have thought her tail was caught in a door! We could not leave her like that so we came back inside and took the collar off and took the chance that she would leave the incision alone. She did not disappoint us, she never touched the incision! She had the collar off all weekend while we were home, the incision is closed and looks really good so we left if off today (Monday) and she never bothered it today either. Basically the lump/growth removal was a non-issue for her. She never missed a beat chasing squirrels off the property, has been on all her usual walks, hops up and takes her usual spot on the sofa, chases the cats upstairs...no change. Until next time....