Tika's Backside and Home Alone

SUMMARY: Tika's anal gland still infected.

After a week of oral antibiotics and antibiotic ointment, 3 days later Tika again began licking the affected area overmuch. Yum! Isn't that your first reaction when--um--certain parts itch? Think I'll lick that! Back to the vet. One gland is still infected.

She's such a drama queen at the vet's. Best treatment is to flush the gland, but last time we were in they tried that without a sedative and really couldn't get much done. So now she's at the vet for a half-day visit for a sedative and a second attempt at squeezing a catheter into a pinhole opening and flushing it thoroughly. (I wonder why she hates being at the vet so much?) Vet is doubtful that DQ will hold still enough for it to be done successfully even with a sedative.

Meanwhile, I'm going out for a few hours today, which means that Boost will be home alone I believe for the first time ever in her entire 27 months of life. Fortunately she's a pretty mellow dog, so should be fine. I'll really have no way of knowing what she's doing while I'm gone--barking like the neighbor's dog does all day? (And sometimes all night.) Or just snoozing off a good weave-pole and tunnel session and breakfast? I'm guessing the latter.

Update: 10:15 AM: Vet just called. "She's so strong and she wiggles so much" that they weren't able to do much in the way of flushing. And it was looking worse than he had hoped and there's a bit of a blood clot in there, too. They want to do a very quick, very light general anaesthesia to put her out for a few minutes to do the job right, otherwise he feels that we could be fighting this for months. Argh.

I gave them the go-ahead, although general anaesthesia always scares me. I'm supposed to be sneaking out to a movie with a friend to relax, and now i'm going to be worrying about this in the background the whole time.