It's a dog's life!

I have been taking photo updates of Sydney's health problems to eventually blog about it. She was taken in to be desexed about 7 or 8 weeks ago now, when Mum was here. After bringing her home from the vet everything appeareed to be fine until about four days later when she started scratching a patch on her back until it was red raw and bleeding. We didn't know what was causing her to do this so I took her right into the vet (different from the Canberra vet who had done the surgery). They said that it appeared she had had a bad reaction to the site of the injection the other vet had given her to put her to sleep for the surgery.
Since this time we have had to wait for the scab to form on her back which lasted about 3 weeks. Once that fell off we have had to keep her bandaged constantly while new skin forms and to keep the wound clean. Her dressings have had to be changed every three days, so we have had numerous trips to the vet. We found that she was chewing the dressings off so we had to use a plastic collar to stop her from chewing the dressings. She looks so forlorn with it on! Around Easter time, the vet suggested it would be cheaper for me to try to change the dressings myself, which I was more than happy to try, as Sydney gets so worked up at the vet that they have had to sedate her on two occassions.
She is really good for me when I change her dressings, but because it is in an awkward spot between her shoulders, we have to wrap tape all around and under her belly to secure it which meant that every time I took the tape off she would be uncomfortable as it pulled her hair out and left her sticky. We had to come up with another solution so we decided to use just a small amount of tape to hold the actual dressing in place then we put one of Bailey's vests on her and taped around that so we didn't have the tape directly on her hair. It worked pretty well, but Bailey is down 5 vests over the past few weeks and our dog has looked like a bit of a freak show! We have had some curious looks from passers-by as we walk her. I just feel so sorry for her that she has had such a rough start to life.
It was happy days for Sydney though when Darwin arrived for a 3 week stay when Tara and Greg went to America. We love Darwin! He is so patient and he and Sydney had so much fun together. They really have such individual personalities! (If Andrew reads this blog he is going to give me grief, as he thinks I have lost my mind over the dogs and is amazed I am so obsessed with them considering I wouldn't even pat a dog for fear of germs up until recently)!

Looking sad with her collar and Bailey's vest. One of my friends saw her and said "Liesa, you have a bogan dog!" For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, it is probably equivalent to your term "trailer trash".
Sydney and Darwin snuggling up before their morning walk. Poor Darwin always had to share his bed as Sydney abandoned hers to be with Darwin.