Today was bandage day. No fun.
Since we cannot touch Skye yet, changing her bandage is quite a production. We need to get her in her room and more precisely in her crate, so we can give her a sedative (a pill). We leave her alone for about 45min, and when she is laying down and is mostly out of it, we come and put a towel on her head (to limit her stress). Peter holds her with the towel, while I change the bandage as fast as I can.
Skye has currently 24h access to the yard as 1) she loves it and 2) it avoids any potty accidents in the house. Watching the webcam, we wait patiently that she goes in her room, and then close the door. We have to do that stealthily from the outside otherwise she runs out. She doesn't like that and starts stressing out. But she is inside, let's sedate her and be done with it. This morning I thought I would be clever by mixing the crushed sedative pill into one of her favorite foods, so I could skip the stressful part about cornering her into the crate and pushing a pill down her throat. She only takes a bite of the food. Has she detected the med in it or is she too stressed to eat? We wait 10 minutes or so. Still not eating. What do we do now? Maybe re-open the door, let her calm down, and see if she comes back to eat the medicated food. I even add some more yummy food into the bowl to dilute the bad taste of the med in case she detected it. She comes back, has another try, eats about half of it, and goes outside. @#%! What do I do? I now have a dog who is half sedated in my backyard. There is no way, we will be able to treat her. Let's abort the mission. 30 minutes later, she is dozing in the sun. Well maybe we can still do something... I go with a towel toward her, and despite being half drugged she stands up and walks away. Okay, the mission is really aborted. Will try again tonight.
I spent all the day worrying. Disappointed by the morning's failure, and nervous for the evening operation. On the other hand, Skye had a good day. She mostly napped, played a bit, and came to us for some treats.
After putting the chickens to bed, it was time for the second try. As soon as Skye came inside, we closed the door behind her. This time I was going to give her the sedative with a syringe in her mouth. Usually she would go in her crate, but this time she did everything to avoid it (damn it! I ruined her crate. It used to be her safe place and I misused it.). I managed to corner her in the kitchen and gave her the med. We left her alone for 45 minutes, watching her on the webcam. She finally settled down in her crate. We went in, put a towel on her head, removed the old bandage (or what was left of it), took a picture of her wound, and made a new bandage. I tried to do it as fast as possible, but at the same time I want it to last for several days. I really don't want to redo it tomorrow or the day after. Ideally it lasts until our next vet visit.
Phew! Happy it's over. But what a bummer we have to do all that before we trust each other. Lallie wouldn't have liked me bandaging her leg, but she would have let me do it. With Skye, I feel crappy like a traitor. Building a relation during the day, and then tricking her to go inside and drugging her at night. Of course, it's for her own good but that doesn't make it easier. It's hard, very hard.
On the positive side, the wound is closing and looks better than 5 days ago :)