Dia's recovery

I don't usually post without pictures to share, but I thought I would take a moment to update everyone on how Dia is recovering. She's had a tough couple of weeks and we've been worried about her. We've had two friends come to the house to visit us and she was scared of them both. The first friend she really freaked out about and wouldn't be in the same room with her. The second one was a little better, but she still wouldn't settle down enough to be touched. She didn't appear to have this problem when we got her... she came up to us and made friends instantly.

On Monday she went and got her staples out. She growled at the vet tech when came to get her. We perceived this is normal, as the last time the vet tech came to get her she got staples in her head. Other than that, she was slightly fearful in the waiting room, but warmed up considerably to the other dogs and ended up practically licking the face off this tiny toy dog.

The next day we had the unfortunate discovery that she had broken open a bit of one of the incisions. When they stapled her closed they did bunch the skin up so much that one of her eyes was pulled up and it looked like she'd had a bad face lift. We wondered if she just blinked really hard and that was all it took to break it open. It was oozing some clear pus and blood and I was pretty grossed out, but didn't panic as it wasn't gushing blood. My dad actually came to visit that night and I asked him about it, although I knew he was going to say she was fine. Her brains could have been leaking out and he would have said she was fine. I can't tell if his stoic lack of empathy for living creatures is real or if it's just a running joke. Anyway, of course he said she was fine. I've gobbed some neosporin on it as she keeps scratching it or running her head into things and breaking it open and it oozes again. At lunch today she thought it would be appropriate to rub it on my work pants, so now I have sticky pus crusted on my pants.

She was pretty aggressive towards my dad, but we thought it was more appropriate than the freaking out she did over the previous visitors. She growled pretty fiercely and even barked when he would enter the room. But she never lunged at him or anything, so we're hoping this is a movement in the right direction when it comes to her behavior with visitors. We take her to the rail trail several times a week and sit and watch people and dogs go by. We're going to start taking her to the off-leash dog park when her head dries up. We're trying to teach her that we know when somethings dangerous and she doesn't need to freak out if we're not freaking out.

In other developments, she's playing pretty good now. She can half-fetch. We toss the ball and she'll go get it, but then she'll bring it back and lay on it so we can't get it back. She thinks this is a terrific game.