Well, except for the rain – he doesn’t like that at all! He’s been having a lot of great walks otherwise. The steady progress seems to be continuing. I snapped a picture of him outside today simply to show his hair re-growth on his back – the shaved edge is all but gone! It also kind of shows the current shape of his butt. He was standing still in the picture, and it’s not really distorted (take my word for it, I guess). More pictures below!

The right side where his muscles were rebuilt is tucked in closer to his body, more ‘normal’. His left side still has a little slope that it should not have. From the under-tail view, though, progress is DEFINITELY visible compared to a month ago. The area on the left does not seem to hold as much feces anymore and so his butt now points only a little to the right, even when he’s going to the bathroom. It used to come out of his body at a right angle, believe it or not.. So it’s better than that, for sure!

November is off to a good start for Dexter. He’s still kind of dribbling urine when he shouldn’t be, and he still leaves some poo smears when he’s curled up in a towel or blanket – so he’s still not allowed on the furniture or the bed, much to his dismay. But he hasn’t had an accident in his crate in weeks. He seems to be regaining the ability to ‘hold it’ – like when it was rainy and he refused to go until the next walk! This is all very ‘normal dog’ behavior returning to him, so I am hopeful it will continue to improve.

Photos below are some various cute ones from the last few weeks. For the Dexter fans!!!

Fun title, right? :\ Well, it’s been a few days since my last update, but there’s not much change to report, unfortunately. Dexter is definitely having pain when he urinates – sometimes he yelps, not necessarily every time, but every time he struggles to stop urinating once he’s started. I heard from Alpenglow today, and there is NO sign of infection – which is unfortunate, because an antibiotic would have been an easy solution. Since Dr. Eshelman is traveling for the next week, the doctor who is temporarily assigned my case (Dr. Pauls, or something to that effect – this was an update over the phone) is going to be emailing him for advice on proceeding. I didn’t get any information about the problem to explain what it is, why it’s happening, or what can be done, but I am supposed to hear back again tomorrow.

It sucks, because the pooping problem is not sorted out yet, either. His body and the lactulose (stool softener) do not go together according to plan, as usual – the stool just refuses to reach that liquidy state that Dr Eshelman would like, to give the rectum and that whole area its best chance to regain normal function. I’m authorized to up his dosage one more time, but it’s ridiculous – normally diarrhea isn’t a good thing, but when you DO want it… Sigh. I should add that his diet has also included a hefty dose of unflavored Pedialyte added to his food at every meal to increase his liquid intake, and it hasn’t helped so far.

Anyway, the next checkup at Louisville Family is on 9/21 (monday) and I’ll be seeing Dr Eshelman at Alpenglow on the next monday, 9/28. These visits together are already > $100 and any medications or other tests will be additional costs. I’m quickly getting back to the point where all of my spending money is going to my pet bills… And with winter fast approaching here in Colorado, I have got to put some dollars into winterizing my 12-year-old car.

Sorry I don’t have any new pictures for this post. It has been a stressful week. I’ll try and take some over the next few days. Thanks for your support.

Today was the surgery checkup to remove sutures and see his progress, and it was also my 29th birthday! Yay…Sadly, it wasn’t the best news, although his sutures were removed, and both his repaired muscles, plus his left un-altered side, still feel really good according to Dr. Eshelman. He spent the day at Alpenglow because they wanted to do an exam that required him to be under some narcotics. He also got a full-on bath that the tech said was so thorough that she had given him “the full monty!” I thought that was funny. The issue is that Dexter’s rectum is too dilated – open, I suppose is a synonym – and because he had about 6 months of in-between surgeries, where this issue was ongoing, the doctor is concerned that it may never fully retract to the proper position.

Recapping the last few days, briefly: Dexter’s been very happy emotionally and quite pleased with life except for one issue; he’s been pretty much incontinent in terms of passing feces, his rectum was dilated and swollen, and despite many sessions hand washing his back end, there was crusting and irritation of the area. (Now that the sutures are out, he can be bathed again, but until today, that wasn’t an option – hence hand washing.) On top of that, as I’d reduced the dose of stool softeners in order to ease this diarrhea-born surface irritation, Dr Eshelman seemed concerned that the rectum was beginning to accumulate stool within it, and thus dilating further, and not getting better… 🙁 The rectum needs to regain its normal sphincter action in order for him to return to fully normal life. Otherwise, the issue will continue where no matter if he tries to poop outside a million times or not at all, when he’s doing normal activity or even just sleeping, poo comes out of him. It’s gross and not pleasant for anyone, but it’s also scary because the ideal recovery would, by now, have him regaining this function instead of seeming to have plateaued.

Anyway, his incontinence has continued pretty much unchanged and we’d had to develop some new bathing methods. Today he had his sutures removed and now he can be bathed again, but in order to let his rectum heal, he needs to be kept on stool softeners until he’s going “as liquidy as possible” – yay 🙁

Therefore, tonight while I was having dinner for my birthday, and Dexter was still doped up from his narcotics-fueled rectal exam of this afternoon, I gave him a trial run in a doggy diaper. BOY, was this dog ANGRY!!!! He has put up with a lot, but he was in full-on sulking, whining-for-no-reason, petulant pup mode, for sure. That said, I could tell he was in no pain and it was simply an emotional response, so we went to dinner with him in the cone locked in the crate. On returning home, he was still discontent, and had managed to tug his diaper a bit low on one leg (despite wearing his usual two-cone combination outfit), but overall he was perfectly fine. At one point tonight he even gave up on sulking long enough to eat his dinner (Purina One canned food with additional unflavored pedialyte for nutrition and hydration – he HATES drinking water).

He has a long way to go still before he is out of the woods. I’m now back at the point of $350-400 vet visits for each of these exams (because there’s too much pain on his unhappy rear for them to do an exam without narcotics) and if he needs an enema over the next few weeks, then it will be the same sort of deal. I’ve decided to add a second ‘goal’ bar to my page to track donations for after-care. I know a few people have expressed the desire to help but I’d reached the goal already and so I just want it to be obvious that Dexter STILL NEEDS HELP! I hope that is understandable.

Here is a picture of him in his diaper and cone. The ultimate in Pathetic Combination Dayware: