Oh my...

It looks like we found Souljur's twin!

http://www.dinocast.net/dingo.jpg

http://thumbs2.modthesims.info/img/1/7/4/2/4/3/8/MTS2_InsamePsychoRabbit_787559_dingo.jpg

He looks just like a dingo! I need to get comparison photos...

So Updates...

It's taken me a while to update and I apologize. Four days ago Soul got his staples out and he's doing VERY well! We even started off leash walks and he's doing amazingly.
If he's too far ahead he'll stop, if he lags behind and I move forward he'll follow, if we're heeling and he's too far apart from me I'll snap my fingers and he'll move closer. If he's in a really epic sniff and I call him, he'll come. If he's going too fast and I tell him to "slow", he will. He doesn't take off running through the huge canyon we live at either.

I'll have to get a video, I'm thinking of making an off-leash tutorial... what do you think? He's TERRIBLY responsive to cues and my voice, it just makes him all the more endearing :)

The image attached is a "sneak peek" of a new trick we're developing ;)

He went poop today but it was diarrhea... on his little care sheet it says that if he has diarrhea we're supposed to not put him back on his regular feed. But they don't say whether to keep him on it if the diarrhea is BECAUSE of the sudden change from bland to kibbled feed so... I guess we'll just keep it up! I think he'll be okay. He didn't purge this morning either so... YAAAY.

I can't wait for Monday.
Today actually marks our 6th month and 3 week anniversary!
I'm just sitting around and waiting for when he gets his staples out.... we're going to go midday Monday or something, I think I'm just going to have to cope until then.

Weight Gain

So we're starting to work on Souljur's weight gain now! He's still a good 8 pounds underweight (or he was when we originally went to the vets... he does look like he's gained some), but it's hard to tell because he also lost some muscle mass due to a lack of exercising over these past few weeks. You can see his ribs, spine, and hip bones though so we're just working on getting some meat on the boy. So today I upped his food and gave him extra cottage cheese (which is good for gaining weight) and I also upped his kibble amount to 1 cup. In total it's probably about 2 cups each day worth of rice, cottage cheese, and kibbles.

Eventually I'll start doubling his kibble and taking away the rice so that it's just (basically) 2 cups of kibble + cottage cheese. I want to get this all done by the next 4 days and have him back to eating a grand total of 2 cups of kibbles (and maybe still some cottage cheese if he's still underweight) because on Monday is when his staples get to come out.

In other news this morning he was purging a little bit in the bathroom. I could see his stomach moving but it wasn't too major - still it was a bit alarming. He didn't throw anything up, though. Not sure if that's good, bad, or neither? But nothing's happened since then.

UPDATE
It is 4:30pm and he HASN'T thrown up and he just went poop! YAY! This is his third bowel movement since the surgery, so I'm really glad because it's been a while. It wasn't solid, it was more like diarrhea, but at least it was there!

Getting Hopeful!

We've had such an amazing outreach with everything. We've already made $400 in donations! Yay! We're getting there :)

Souljur did some tricks this morning - he's getting very excited about feed, which is a good thing. He's been very obnoxious with his cone lately, but all in all he's doing a lot better. We're still stuck inside, so nothing new has happened really, I just wanted to update you all on how great everyone has been with donations and whatnot :) THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!! It means a lot

Good News!

THE WORST IS BEHIND US!!!

He didn't vomit this morning so, as I had assumed, the cat food was the problem and it was taken care of by his body naturally. He's been eating nicely and his energy level is (unfortunately for him) back. We played a game earlier, he began to play-nip as my old family dog used to do - I'd been teaching him not to do that ever since I got him so he was a little confused as to why I allowed it this time. I think I'm not going to let him do it next time, but I cut him some slack today because he was so BORED.

There's literally nothing to do... we can't walk, run, or play, so we make up little games as we go along to keep our sanity.

I've been getting a lot of supporters lately and donations! I'm getting close to my goal everyday. I'm going to be making shirts pretty soon for anyone who wants to donate that way. Keep checking back on our Youtube channel, I just uploaded a video.

Disappointed...

Yesterday morning he pooped for the first time in four days which is GOOD, however... he threw up yesterday morning as well.

He threw up again this morning. It was all liquid, and he'd had four meals before, so that means they went down... the throw up was cat food colored, so I'M HOPING it's the left over from the past two days. If he throws up AGAIN I'm probably going to call the vet. I'm very frustrated, tired, and disappointed... STRESSED, mainly.

All of his medications are done at least, which is good. Nothing new apart from that... he seems to really enjoy having his old food again and it's staying down, so that's nice. I'm with him literally 24/7 which gives me time to perseverate on every little thing and get stressed out when I'm not watching him... I really need to take a break from this. Unfortunately I have a whole nother week to endure before it goes back to normal.

All-Around-Update!

So Soul is doing a lot better since those first few days. Basically, he's getting back to his old self. He's extremely bored, since he has to be inside ALLL day, and wants to play tug, has a motivation to eat, etc. He's not 100% himself, but there are moments when I see his personality coming back. His day is usually just lying down in a spot, then getting up and lying down in another one, because that's all he CAN do. We can't play, walk, or anything else, so he's inside and bored the entire time! (so am I, might I add. I got SO excited when we went to recycle cans and bottles the other day cause it was something to DO).

I put food in his Kong so he has something to do, but he's so smart so that doesn't last long. (He figured out all on his own that dropping the Kong makes the food fall out... smart boy.) Like I said, he's not REALLY back to himself, but he's progressing along a lot fine.
Today we are able to start re-introducing his original food, so I'll update in the future with how that goes. We just washed the car and had him in the front watching us, so that was fun! At least that was something different than just laying around all day, something tells me he's a little more tired out after that.

So he's doing very well, we'll just have to see how things unfold.

Well...

He just threw up again. Remember how yesterday he got into the cat food? Well... this is the last of it. He didn't even have time to digest his breakfast and he threw up a lot of it. It annoys me because we were doing so well and this sets us back. I don't like it and it discourages me. I'm just going to try and keep my spirits up.

Good and (semi-)bad news.

I am SOOO glad! We only have ONE MORE SUFCRALFATE (I can never spell his meds right) SO THAT MEANS NO MORE 10PM WAKING HIM OR 6AM WAKING BOTH OF US :D

He's developed a habit for whining at 6am to be let out - it started because the first few days he couldn't hold his pee (the vets hydrated him) so I basically had no choice but to let him out or he would pee in his crate. This morning, though, he didn't go pee when I let him out even though he whined - so if he does it tomorrow, I'm going to tell him to be quiet, because it took 5 months for him to stop whining in the crate and I don't want that habit circulating again.

The (semi-)bad news is that he threw up this morning at 7:40am. He hasn't been defecating, but I called the vets two days ago and they said that was normal because it would take 3 or so days to regulate back into a schedule. Well, it's the morning of the 5th day, so I'm going to be waiting intently. But the fact he vomited when he hasn't been irritates me a little bit: it wasn't that much, but still. It's probably because somehow he got into the cat food, which he obviously isn't even allowed to have his own food, so I can only hope that he threw it all up. Not only that, but he's been starting to GROWL a lot more, which bugs me a lot.
He growled at my sister once (but he wasn't bristling and he was wagging his tail and it was short: sometimes his "hello" includes a growl or two, so I don't quite know what to think of this), but then later that day he growled at my mother (our doors have glass but the glass has a patterning on it so you can see that someone is at the door but not WHO it is), when she was behind the door, his hair bristled up and he growled. I of course scolded him but he knocked it off when he saw it was her.
Then last night at who knows what time (meaning 2am-ish) he was growling again - not sure if it was a nightmare or if he thought he saw something, but it's starting to worry me a little bit. He also didn't want to take his sulfracate (lmao at my lack of correct spelling) which he ALWAYS doesn't mind, so that was a bit weird.

So all in all, things are okay. Yesterday he was a lot more like himself: playing tug (we're breaking the rules a little bit. But I make sure it's not super-rough play and it's VERY short intervals) and came when called, we even did some training (which he ABSOLUTELY LOVED)... so we'll see how today unfolds.

On a side note, I've been scrapbooking! I found some old scrapbook supplies and picture-printer paper. Last night I spent the entire evening scrapbooking him. It was AWESOME.

Donation Update

My own money:
$50.00

From FP donations, art, and kindness of others putting me in THEIR sales (<3):
$38.50

From real life contributors:
$225.00

THANK YOU ALL, WE'RE GETTING CLOSER. YOUR KINDNESS TOUCHES ME SOSOSO MUCH <333!!!

Souljur's Diet

He has to be on a bland diet 5 days after his surgery, and then we can gradually re-introduce his kibble. He has to have 4 small meals a day all the while having timed medications... he has to have all of this 30 mins to an hour away from each other, so currently our schedule looks like this:

- Sulfacate as a "slurry" every 8 hours (one @ 6am which we both have to wake up early for, one @ 2pm, and another I have to wake him up for @ 10pm)
- Cephalexin (250 and 500 strength) every 12 hrs (@ 8am and 8pm)
- Pepcid AC every 12 hrs (9am and 9pm - I have to wake him up from his 8pm bedtime for this one)
- Tramadol for pain (as needed).

So I craftily made his feeding schedule around this:
- One small meal at 10am
- Another small meal at noon
- Another at 3pm (because his slurry is at 2)
- And his last one at 5pm (which is his usual feeding time anyway).

He DOES have an appetite which is nice and his second day he pooped twice which means THINGS ARE GOING THROUGH! YAY!
His diet is actually fairly fun to make. I get to choose from chicken, rice, baby food, and cottage cheese. He likes it all. You have to make sure there is more "mass" food than there is "liquids" (meaning mostly chicken and rice with cottage cheese or baby food to stick it all together). I wonder how he'll feel about kibble after all of this.
Our house officially smells like medication ;) but he's worth it < 3

Yesterday I was trying to give Souljur kisses through his cone!
What do you guys think of the new blog? Comment and let me know.

I'll be posting an entry about his diet and more detailed info on his medications for today's entry.

HELP SAVE SOULJUR!

Hello everyone! This is Cerious from account #94152 on FP. Under this blog, I am going with the name Cerious (which is not my actual name for those of you visitors who know me by my legal name). I started this blog so you guys could come on Souljur's journey with me!

More specifically, I started this blog so you guys could all be updated on Souljur's health from the surgery, nab daily updates and training tips, and see up to date information on donations. We really, really appreciate all of the support and we hope you will watch us grow and help him heal!
HELP SAVE SOULJUR BY DONATING TO OUR CAUSE!

Under paypal we are
anywhereonmyown@ymail.com

More to come!