Horace went to the vet yesterday for a haircut. And here he is finding a bit of blanket which has fallen off the sofa. He can get on the sofa, well, he could, but he’s currently forgotten how.
When they were cutting his hair they found that he has a lump under his eye which is a tooth absess. This is why his face looks a little pink in the picture above.
While on any other dog this would be a relatively small thing – this is going to be very problematic with Horace as we need to give him medication to stop the infection, then I think they will open the abscess, so I have a horrible feeling we’ll need to clean that and probably he’s have more medication. And of course he’s so difficult to handle that this isn’t going to be easy by any means.
The vet that saw him hasn’t seen Horace in full warrior mode, she saw him yesterday when he was looking super-cute and he was still dopey from the sedation that they have to give him before they can cut his coat. So I don’t think she quite understands the challenge we face (but she will when we go back for a review on 28th!).
We decided to mix the tablets with water and inject this into his mouth as being the best course of action to ensure he gets all the medication. We can’t crush the and sprinkle on his food as he scatters it everywhere. Nor can we hide them in his food as he will avoid anything that isn’t his normal biscuits.
So that was a horrible experience for all involved as Horace went full-on panic, taking on super-strength and we had to wrap him in a blanket and then Ian squirt the medication into him while Horace was trying to bite me. My fear is that Horace will start to distrust us, however I think as this is just once a day, he’ll have enough time to forget. He’s currently snuggled up under his duvet and doesn’t seem to have any after effects from yesterday – so fingers crossed.
Luckily he doesn’t seem to have toothache as that would be difficult if he stopped eating.
If we can get this bit over and then the abscess treated and then his teeth cleaned, hopefully we’ll be back to normal quickly. We saw with Primrose that the affect of her teeth being cleaned was virtually instantaneous and she went from MONTHS of not eating to eating with gusto within a couple of hours!