Well I've learned over these past 6 weeks that there has been one thing more than anything else that has contributed to Jack's day to day comfort and calmness during his recovery jail-term - air conditioning. Here in Portland almost no one has central air, window units abound. For Jack's recovery we've been keeping him in the study downstairs which happens to face the west, and barring some decent shade from the Oak trees in the back, does get plenty warm, even now with it being about 85F outside. We knew we didn't want Jack to overheat in the summer (it will get above 100F here for a while in August), so we grabbed one of these portable room AC units from Target. I can definitely recommend this for anyone with a furry dog going through this (or any other) confinement oriented recovery. Jack lies in front of this AC unit from when we leave in the morning until we get home, getting up only occasionally to adjust his position (I know this b/c I have a webcam on him that I can check from work). I think the fact that cool air is blowing on him all the time keeps him sedate and calm, plus the added benefit of white noise (not sure if it works the same for Jack, but it definitely drowns out the outside noises we can hear) keeps Jack in his own little world. The beauty of this is that we've not yet had to use sedatives to keep Jack calm as he goes through the "risky" phase of his recovery where he feels great, but his leg's still at risk.
Here in the middle of week 5, Jack is continuing to improve. He's even shown attempts at "jumping up" (which freaks us out and makes us hunch over to keep him down on the ground), so it's evident he's feeling better (he hasn't done that in almost a year). 3 1/2 more weeks til the second surgery, got the okay from the vet to start taking him on short leash walks in a week given his progress so far. I cannot wait, and neither can Jack.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment