So what is under all that bandage material?

If you were wondering what ROBO-pup looks like under all those bandages, here you go. We have his xrays! Previous pictures we have posted show the plates, screws (motors) and the titanium wires. Now, you can see where all of this metal goes inside him!

Christmas comes early for the puppies

We don't spoil our dogs, do we? The dogs sure don't seem to think we spoil them enough. What do you think? (Oh, and this wasn't all the stuff they got this holiday season, there is more on the way!)

Getting better and growing fur

More metal

This is what his leg looks like without the bandages....

Zzzs

Jinx had a long day, and we spoiled him by letting him sleep on our bed while we watched tv. He still doesn't have enough grown up teeth to hold in his tongue!

Robo-pup!

A Gillette spokesman

He has 20% of his fur shaved off, I can see him in the next Gillette fusion commercial!

Jinx is home!!

Jinx just came home from the hospital! Robo-pup is up and about, the pain meds make it possible for him to move around a little bit. Why robo-pup? Well, he is now around 1/2 a pound heavier due to all the metal in and around his leg. In the next day or so, we should have the xrays which show all the metal under the bandages.

4-5 hours of Surgery!

Jinx was finally waking up from surgery ~8:30 this evening. He was in surgery for a total of 4-5 hours! He has a big bandage on, covering up all of the metal in and surrounding his leg. We'll share the radiographs as soon as we get a copy. He will stay in the hospital overnight and through tomorrow on constant pain medications.

Spoiled on his last night before the operation

We let Jinx nap for a bit in our bed since it is his last night before the major surgery....

All grown up and neutered!

Neuter was fast and uneventful. I wish I took a picture of him when he was waking up - tongue hanging out to the side since he barely has any teeth!

The big orthopedic surgery to fix his angular deformity is next week! I hope we're ready...

Snuggles

How cute!

Here we go again....

Luna was so much fun after her surgery, that we decided to do it again with Jinx. Kristie gave the basic details below, and she will follow up with some details on how this is all going to go down with the surgery itself. Below are some xrays where you can see his normal leg (Left) and his defective leg (Right). With this surgery, Jinx is going to easily surpass all of Luna's medical bills! After having such a rough start to his life, this complex surgery should at least fix his leg enough to have a great quality life. Jinx will definitely need a healthy and mostly pain free leg if he wants to keep up with crazy Luna!

Upcoming Surgery!

Poor Jason was kept very busy with the two dogs while I was off in NH, Boston, and Kansas. Of course, they were naughty and picked up bad habits of jumping on people and furniture! While gone, I contemplated and consulted about his leg and what type of surgery would allow for the best outcome. After speaking with Dr. Sunil Vasanjee we've decided on the type of surgery that will allow him the best use of his leg and the least pain/arthritis long term. He's being evaluated tomorrow and will have more radiographs taken. He'll likely get the surgery the beginning of next week.

Jinx is a happy, crazy, playful little puppy and doesn't seem to care much about his leg - but he is limping more now than ever :-(

We'll be officially adopting him from the Humane Society so that he can get the best possible care in our home. Surgery will be quite expensive and the recovery is going to take 3-5 months until he's somewhat normal again.

Lab puppy

Knowing that I would be going out of town this weekend, and to leave Jason with 3 dogs would be crazy, we found a new temporary home for the little girl. She is with Austin Pets Alive, a no-kill organization. She will be going to her new foster home soon! If you would like to sponsor her, or find more information about APA, go to http://www.austinpetsalive.org

Name that puppy!

Any suggestions for the new puppy's name? We had a hard time with Jinx, since up until him we had a nice alphabetical order thing going:

J - Jason
K - Kristie
L - Luna

We were hoping to name Jinx something with an M, but that never happened.

The new puppy can't catch a break

As we discovered last night, the new puppy not only has mange, but she also has tape worms. Again, this is treatable, so we will get her healthy as quickly as we can.

New puppy

So the new puppy is a ~7 week old female yellow lab. She was brought into the hospital where I work earlier this week, and transferred to the local shelter by animal control. I made sure to give them my contact information if there were any concerns about her being euthanized. On my examination of her, she is thin, and has a skin problem that looks like mange. They called this morning saying she is "at risk", implying that she will be euthanized due to her presumed mange (a treatable infection with mites).

Of course, we went and picked her up this afternoon... started treatment for the mites. She is isolated in the office away from the other dogs for now (since this type of mite is contagious). Now that Jinx is finally a relatively easy, well-behaved puppy, we have our hands full with another. We need to find a new foster home ASAP since she is contagious, and 3 dogs is a little too much!

Jinx update: he is still limping and his right front leg is visibly shorter than the other. He has an appointment tomorrow morning to see Dr. Kerpsack.

Jinx is losing teeth!

We found the canine, but the other 3 teeth he has lost are missing.

bad dogs on the couch

sooo cute, but sooo naughty sleeping on the couch!

Being a good puppy!

Overall, Jinx is a really great, easy-going puppy... nothing like Luna was when she was a puppy. She still doesn't know the meaning of the word "nap". Just a little bit of playtime and attention and he calms right down for a nap. He'll even play alone with his toys and entertain himself (when Luna isn't trying to play with him).

Clearly he hasn't figured out that his bed IS big enough to sleep in...

House Training

So Jinx has been a average to maybe above average puppy at his house breaking skills. Typically he will do all his business outside if we watch him very closely, utilize the crate, and go outside preemptively every 2 hours or so. Today he actually whined at the door for the first time!

He's now over 22 pounds! Keeping up with Luna fairly well and going on regular walks in the neighborhood.

Jinx still has quite the limp in his right front leg. I took another couple of radiographs to see how the fracture was healing - and it looks great! Unfortunately, one of his growth plates appears abnormal. He is also painful if that area is pressed on firmly. I'm suspecting hypertrophic osteodystrophy, but would like to discuss this with the surgeon who took care of his fracture... he just wanted one more medical issue to be added to his list!

19.8 pounds!

Growing fast, and finally filling out too. It's all that exercise Luna gives him chasing him around and tackling him.

Playtime is all the time

These two are nuts together! At least no one has gotten hurt yet despite all the tumbles and rough-housing. I apologize for the blurry picture, another reason to upgrade the phone :-)

Growing up quickly

Jinx got his first set of vaccines today. He and Luna have been running circles in the living room for the past 10 minutes, so apparently the vaccines haven't slowed him down yet.

The debate is still on when (and IF) Jinx is ready for his new home. He is such a sweet (although, not the brightest) little puppy, that we have considered him joining the Adrian family. Luna is still on the fence about it - built in playmate 24 hours is pretty awesome, but sharing toys, beds, treats, and her people... that's another story.

Oh that warm sun!

Best Buds

99% of the day they are playing together and getting into trouble. That other 1%, well, that is for being calm and cute.

Relaxed.... For a moment

The end of froggy

2 minutes after posting the picture of them playing with the frog toy, the two conspired to destroy him....

Sharing at it's best!

Growing!

When we picked Jinx up from AHS, he was just under 13lbs. He's now growing well, and over 14 pounds. Still not quite big enough to play with Luna, who is 52lbs, but that doesn't stop them. Before leaving for work this morning, both of their heads and necks were wet from playing all morning! So much for the bath Jinx just got last night...

Back to being a normal puppy

Jinx is now about 90% recovered from all of his ailments! He is no longer coughing or sneezing. Eye discharge is resolved and ulcers healing. He is using all four legs and runs around playing with toys. He can easily keep up on walks and likes playing with Luna!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0_w1PTciBY

Jinx helping me catch up on work

After being out of town for a few days, I needed to catch up on work. Jinx wanted to help!

Rolling around

The little guy has discovered the joys of rolling around in the grass. A lot easier without a cast!

Puppy Teeth!

I had forgotten how sharp puppy teeth are. Lucky for me, Jasper (perhaps now Jinx?) decided to remind me. This little ankle bitter has been teething non stop this morning. I guess that means he is feeling better. Indeed, he's be hobbling around, playing with toys, everything a normal puppy would do. He's full of energy, and even slept for 7 hours last night, which is nothing short of amazing. This is the most sleep we've had since we took in this adorable little foster pup. 

While attempting to capture his rambunctiousness on camera, Jinx decided his favorite toy was my camera strap. That makes taking pictures very difficult as he bolts across the room to get the strap. 

Kristie is starting to like the name Jinx after all this little guy has been through, so let's see if that name sticks. 

Getting along and starting to share

Jasper now has his own bed, and four floppy legs

Jasper got his cast off today! That is great news, but his leg is still a bit deformed due to it starting to heal at a bad angle before he was seen by the ER. We'll show some pictures of that soon. He is trying to adapt to not having a cast, but tends to avoid that leg altogether. Hopefully with some exercise, he'll be walking and running like all the other dogs in a few weeks.

For the past few days the little guy has been using Luna's bed and travel crate. Needless to say, Luna was not fond of that, and often tried flipping over the bed with Jasper in it. Thus, Jasper was given beds made of towels.... which Luna also moved around thinking that they were toys for her. We are still working on the concept of sharing!

Special thanks to Paul and his family for generously providing a crate, bed, and some new toys for Jasper! This little guy who couldn't catch a break with his medical issues is now being shown all the love and care a puppy could ask for!

A lesson in sharing

Luna and Jasper decided to wake up up at 5AM. Thanks guys. Jasper wouldn't quiet down until ~11:30PM, and we had a bathroom pitstop at 2:30AM as well... so needless to say we didn't much sleep... again.

Now that Jasper is feeling better, he is starting to play with toys. Unfortunately, Luna thinks all the toys are hers. When Jasper gets a toy, even one that is for him, she decides to take it away. Not very nice! The temporary solution was to sit in between them, with Jasper behind me chewing on a toy and playing tug-of-war with Luna in front of me. This was working well for over 5 minutes, until one time I turned around and saw that Jasper had fallen asleep on the toy!

Oh, and almost forgot, his diarrhea is gone! That's one issue down... a few more to go.

Corneal Ulcers

Here you can see the corneal ulcers in his eyes highlighted by the fluorescein stain. The green spots you see are the ulcers. 

Jasper - Day Two, looking good!

Coming home...

On the drive hope, Jasper opened an eye to see who his new friends were. That was good news, we knew he  had at least one eye! Below are the first pictures of him when we let him out of the car. 

Here we have Luna checking out her new friend, in a makeshift bed of towels in a plastic container.