9/7/03: Sydney is getting along well and acting more normal. It's been 3 days post-chemo treatment (doxorubicin/adriamycin) and he's eating well and not having any side effects. Doing better at moving around as a tripod but I haven't seen him racing around, just hobbling slowly. I've also been looking for things he used to do (little behaviors) to show me that he's getting really back to normal. He loved laying in the sand pile and digging to get to the cool moist sand before he laid down. He hasn't done this since his surgery. He went out to the sand pile and stared at it so I thought he was trying to lay down slowly like he does (he has to think about it for a second). But instead, he started quickly pawing the sand with his remaining front leg a few times trying not to fall forward, then he quickly laid down. The second thing he's done in the past week that has been more normal Syd. Later, he went into the yard and another test was going to be him getting onto his back and doing the rottie crawl where he moves his long legs all around scratching his back. Tonight, when we were in the yard, everyone else was doing the back scratch thing and he acted like he wanted to roll over, so I made room for him and he rolled over and moved back and forth a few times, then rolled back on his side. Wasn't as long as he normally would do it, but hey, it's a start!!!!! I'm just SO proud of him and makes me feel SO much better knowing that he is getting more back to his normal quirks, including being vocal to us in a happy way! (we know the difference now between the moanful vocal and the happy vocal!)
9/8/03: Sydney is still doing well and about the same today. Until tonight. Before I went to bed, I let the dogs into the fenced back yard (we live in the country) to go potty and went outside on the deck with them. When Syd doesn't have to potty, he will just lay down. He did that. The others went down to the yard to do their business. Suddenly Syd looked to the north (where the horses like to stand by the gate because they like the dog's company, I guess) and barked, then all of a sudden, all the dogs took off running like crazy. Syd started to run down the steps and I told him to take it easy, then in the darkness only lit with the city lights against the clouds, I could see Syd running as fast as the 4 legged dogs toward a small incline in the yard! I about freaked seeing him actually RUN that fast! There they stopped and I couldn't see what they were doing but figured they had cornered something. I didn't hear screaming so knew it wasn't one of the stray cats hanging around. But then I smelled SKUNK!!! I ran in the house to put my shoes on and to find a darn flashlight. I ran outside and made them get away and sure enough, they had gotten a slow moving skunk and apparently killed it (unless it was already dead, I couldn't tell). And guess who was on the bottom of the pile who arrived first to the skunk? My 3 legged dog Syd! I made sure no one got bit and no one did, but they sure got sprayed. All of them were stinking to high heaven! I let them into the front yard and called my husband to stop by the store on the way home from work to get tomato juice. The dogs all went out to the sand pile and yard and started trying to rub the oil off of them. My husband arrived home and we put tomato juice in spray bottles and sprayed their faces and heads (which they didn't seem to mind) and rubbed it in and then hosed them off. We left them in the garage to air out overnight (since there is a lot of ventilation from windows, etc in there). This morning everyone is still stinky! <sigh> My husband also said that Sydney had been bleeding slightly from his right nostril and thought he may have either bumped it while rubbing his head or fallen down. This is the 2nd time in the past week that Syd has had the same bloody nose. I think it was before his chemo treatment that while feeding him, I noticed a small amount of blood on his white food bowl, but it stopped shortly thereafter. Since it's on the same side of his amputation, I thought maybe it's because he's bumped it once in awhile. I did ask the oncologist today about it and she said she's never heard of any dog falling and getting bloody noses, but it wouldn't have any indications of cancer mets to his lungs or anything.
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