Old Dogs

Ginger is looking better. She has perked up somewhat and is enjoying her meals again. Plus, she is working us over for weiners and we are such suckers for her that we oblige. We hide her antibiotics in bits of veggie weiner. She works the pill with her tongue and thus gets four of five more weiner pieces as we endeavour to rehide mushy pill pieces. We all know what she is doing but we all play the game.
We were vigilant for the first couple of days and now we have lapsed for as much as two hours sometimes past her pill time. Fourteen days is a long time.
We go for short walks and mosey around the neighbourhood, she seems happy not to take long galavants right now and I am happy not to put her into my car as I have clients who I am sure don't want to share their space with dog hair. Now that I have de dog haired the thing.

We will take Ginger back for her follow-up x-rays after the antibiotics but I already know the results. Her recovery will not be what a young dog could do. Ginger is 13 years old. If we are lucky we will have eliminated the infection but this process will not reverse the heart valve damage.
All the tooth brushing in the world won't reverse the problem in her blood vessels but may prevent further infection. Her old teeth hardly do her any service anymore she has a cracked tooth no doubt from chewing on bison bones in her salad days but it doesn't seem to be causing her any gyp. I won't put her under anesthetic to remove her tooth, it would be too hard on her.
On the weekend her old buddy Nikki came by for a visit. Ginger had been in the land of nod for hours before they arrived and when Nikki came into the house Ginger sprang into action, trotting right to her food bowl to eliminate any traces of kibble just in case Nikki thought about having a snack. Funny thing I think that kibble had dust on it for having sat in her bowl for days as she sniffed haughtily at it and worked us over for her favourite food, chicken soup.
So maybe she has another summer in her and hopefully another car trip.