Preparing the Puppy

So today Miss Ginger went for her first vincristine chemotherapy treatment. The vet takes her to the back they shave her leg and they administer the vincristine intravenously. That was 7 hours ago and she seems to be handling the new medication quite well. She had to be taken off the old medication because her platelet count dropped too low. So we now get to go see Dr. Mike every other week for an IV treatment.
We also are preparing for her to have surgery on her right eye. After surgery she will be required to wear an “Elizabethan” collar for several weeks after surgery.  Mick and I have always referred to these collars as “stupid” collars because every dog looks stupid with one of these cones strapped to their head.
I decided that it would not be appropriate to wait until right after surgery to put this collar on her for the first time. I thought it would be a good idea to give her time to get used to wearing this collar and maneuvering in this collar, rather than waiting until we bring her home after surgery and she’s all drugged up and can’t walk straight anyway. So I went to Petco in order to buy the collar but unfortunately they had no electricity and were unable to sell me anything. 
So I headed for Mud Bay Pet Supply. We jokingly call it the hippie dog store. Because it’s where all the local hippies shop for their dog supplies. Well, I was truly blessed because the only stupid collar they had was a padded collar. It’s called a comfort collar and there is no hard plastic in it whatsoever! It’s completely flexible yet doesn’t allow her to get her paws up to her eyes or face.

Poor thing is not happy about having to wear this thing. But it’s for her own good and it’s better for her to adjust to it now when we can do this for shorter periods until she adjusts to it.

You can just see that she is thinking would someone get this thing off my head and stop taking my picture….this is so embarrassing. So we wore it for about two hours today and we will wear it some more again tomorrow. The poor girl was bumping into everything with this thing on but since it’s flexible she didn’t have this plastic jabbing her in the neck. When she lays her head down the cone collapses and since it has some padding it’s almost comfortable. You can even fold the bottom portion back so she doesn’t have to put the whole cone over her food dish to eat.