A year later

It has been over a year since we drove to Indiana and got Winston's gold beads done. I've been having a hard time writing this, not because Winston hasn't gotten better, but only because nothing has changed for months and I wasn't sure what to say. 

He's still moving around and will stand up when I ask. Sometimes it takes him longer to motivate himself to stand up to go outside in the chilly air, but he can always stand the first time.
He still goes up and down the stairs and runs around the yard, two things I always count that as a blessing.
The pentosan shot that we give him every 3 weeks has really been the key to success. Without it he can still move around although, stiffly and slowly. With it he becomes a spunky new dog the day after the shot. The shot along with the gold beads has kept Winston with us, I believe.

Because it's been colder Winston has been sleeping more in the evenings and doesn't like staying out in the cold. I start leaving him inside during the day on really cold or stormy days, he's not a fan of that. He'd rather be basking in the sunshine than cooped up in the house.

I'm sure people won't be happy to hear this, but we've also stopped working on socializing Winston with other dogs again. We decided that it just wasn't worth the money since Winston can't come with us on dog hikes. He's so unstable and untrustworthy on his feet. It was a lot of work to get Winston to and from K-9, it cost us a fair amount of money and the pay off just wasn't there. I still love what K-9 has done for him and us and we'd still go if there was a benefit. We'll be going back with our next puppy no matter the breed. (no I'm not getting a puppy any time soon, 3 dogs is more than enough!)

That's it, there's nothing else to report. Winston's still with us and doing as well as can be expected. He's such a quirky dog with the funniest personality, I'm so glad he's still around.

Raw feeding un-wrapped

We've been feeding the dogs raw for about a year now so I figured I'd talk about what it's like for us. Many people who like the benefits of raw diets for their pets still don't do it because of cost and time. For us it's not that much more expensive than the top brand food we were feeding the dogs so that's not the killer, but the time to get it ready is a tad painful.

First off, we have to go to different locations to get the meat depending on sales or if it's just available at a butcher. Then when we get home we have to wait for the meat to thaw enough that we can prep it and split it up into meals. Some places will pack it up into what quantities you ask for, but that costs more and with how much it is to feed Winston we just ask for everything in bulk. So boxes or bags of meat are hanging out in our kitchen (we try to get it in the sink, but it won't always fit) for an overnight thawing up to a couple days and then comes the fun part. Just as a reference, it takes us an hour to get through 40 pounds of ground pork.

I open the bags/boxes and dump as much as I can into the sink. Then while John is preparing the meat and separating it out into portions I label ziplock bags with dog names.

Here John is de-fating a chicken quarter, when we first started the fat was too much for Winston's system and giving him the squirts, now his body has adapted and we keep the fat on.

After John does all the prep he weighs the meat on our food scale so we can get close to 4 pounds for Winston, a little over a 1/4 for Enna and 1/2 pound for Makoa. Then I open the bag, he plops in the meat and I seal it and stick it on the counter and wait until he's ready for me again.

Look at Enna licking those lips, hoping that John will drop a bite down to her.

Enna and Makoa's turkeys. One turkey neck weighs about 1 pound so John cuts them into pieces for the little ones.

More Turkey necks!

Once everything is ready to go it heads down to our standing freezer.

I know the freezer looks gross, that's what happens when the cooling fan goes out and everything thaws for a day until you notice. 

The door holds the organs and Enna and Makoa's food and the main part is Winston. We just filled it with pork, deer and elk. Turkey will be ordered at the end of the month and will fill the bottom shelf for Winston.

We have a calendar on the door of the fridge and when food goes in John updates it to who gets what on what days and when I need to re-order food. Then that info goes into my phone so I'll remember to call.We have it set up perfectly now that food will run out at different times of the month (or months) so that we only have to fork over cash sparingly and not in one huge chunk. The dogs are also fasted once a week to let their digestive systems take a rest. You may worry that they're going hungry, but remember that in the wild, wolves can go days without eating. Research showed that letting them rest once a week will help them live longer.

If you're only feeding little dogs you'll go forever on 40 pounds of meat, I bought chicken necks for Enna & Makoa in October and I won't have to buy them again until March. But feeding a big dog means you'll be going through big quantities quickly, 40 pounds of pork only gets us through two months with all three dogs eating it.  

When it's feeding time the bony or smelly pieces get eaten outside, that way I don't have to mop my kitchen floor, make sure they stay in the kitchen or put up with the smell of tripe or chicken necks. I learned that the hard way when Enna decided that under our bed was the best place to eat turkey necks.
The ground stuff they eat in their bowls in the kitchen since they usually inhale it any nothing ends up on the floor.

The benefits of raw have been great. All the dogs coats are shiny and soft and their teeth are really clean. Winston used to have an oily texture and constant dog smell which have both gone away. He also has stayed a healthy weight for his size.
Enna actually is excited to eat now when with kibble she'd take a few bits and then wander away. The vet always complained that she was underweight during her yearly check-ups, but at the last one he gave her two thumbs up.
Makoa plumped up 5 extra pounds with kibble and getting it off him was hard, after 6 months on raw he's down to a healthy weight and looks fantastic. Also the vet no longer hassles me about getting his teeth cleaned anymore.
 We still do some supplements because we feel its necessary. Winston gets glucosamine for his joints and everyone gets salmon oil because it's easier for us then doing fish (only Makoa will eat whole fish). 

I would say that one downfall to raw is traveling; it isn't always the easiest and the more dogs you have to more difficult it gets. We haven't gone camping yet, but with road trips I need to make sure we have enough ice and room in a cooler...or one of their very own...and a fridge/freezer to put stuff in or we have to stop to pick stuff up.
There is dehydrated stuff that you can buy for outrageous prices that we might resort to if we'll be camping for long periods of time and deffinately if we go backpacking with the dogs. Packing light does not equal 20 pounds of dog food.

Raw hasn't been as easy as opening a bag of kibble and it can be time consuming, but we won't be quitting any time soon. We're enjoying the benefits and plan on doing it for quite some time. 

I should be thrilled, but instead I'm annoyed...

So ever since my post about Winston coming down to join us he has come down EVERY time we've been downstairs. That's a lot of stairs since we spend 90% of our time at home in our basement.
One tiny problem with this....HE'S ANNOYING!!!

You'd think having a dog for a year and a half we'd have gotten used to having him around, but about a year of that time he hasn't wanted to come downstairs so we never gotten into a good ebb and flow. The other dogs usually find a bone to chew or sleep somewhere in the room never bothering us (until they get up to chase the cat out of the room 27 times in 5 minutes), but Winston just can't do that.

If he's not hogging all the nylabones from Enna and Makoa, he's hovering over them to get theirs. Which then causes a commotion while Enna or Makoa tell him to leave them the F*** alone. If he's not causing a fight, he's standing with his face squarely in our laps, drooling on our pants or he's trying to climb onto the couch for the 100th time even though we tell him no.
It usually takes him a good half hour to actually just settle down and sleep and then we all try to move as silently as possible to not wake him and start the whole endeavor all over again. This usually means to go without potty breaks and absolutely no popcorn making.

Also unlike the other dogs he is very much not allowed in my craft room. I don't want him sliming my fabrics, getting in my way and driving the other dogs crazy while I sew. So the other night when I was in there working and John wasn't home he didn't know what to do with himself. I'd hear him start coming downstairs and I'd go out to supervise (not that I could really do much if a 150 pound dog decided to start sliding down) to make sure he'd make it down, but then it was back into my craft room. He'd then stand around crying because he didn't want to be alone and finally decided that maybe upstairs was where he wanted to be. So then I had to help him up, which I actually can do, so my walls don't take another beating.
Then I turned off all the basement and kitchen lights making the stairwell dark hoping that would deter him from coming. I then got about an hour of peace and quiet with Enna and Makoa at my feet while I sewed.
My weekend sewing mornings are sure not going to be productive if I'll be spending most of my time babysitting him on the stairs and keeping him entertained.

Don't get my wrong, I'm happy that he's deciding to join us and I'm sure that this is making his life more enjoyable.  I just hope that soon he finds his place in our ecosystem and it won't be such a burden to have him with us. I also need John to agree to selling our microfiber couch so Sir Drools A Lot will stop leaving a coat of spit in his wake. 

A pleasant surprise

While at work Wednesday night John text me saying Winston came down the stairs all on his own. No coaxing, no whining at the top of the stairs, he just came down.
 Hoping that it wasn't a fluke I waited to see if he'd come down tonight. Just a few minutes after we sat down and flipped on the tube he was making his way downstairs.

After about an hour John went back up to make us dinner and Winston decided to follow. Being so proud and happy I yelled to John that Winston was coming up. With his progress of coming down I was delusional and thought he could handle it himself. That was a big no.
I heard him falling and rushed to help, but I was too late. Luckily it was only a few steps, he landed on his feet and he got right back up, but our wall took a beating.

Not sure what part of his body hit the wall and I felt terrible. I shouldn't have let him go up alone.
John helped him back up while we got dinner ready and I was worried that the small progress made was all ruined and stewed about it all through dinner feeling guilty.

We made our way back down and waited to see if Winston would follow. And he did! And then threw up his dinner on the white carpet.

We're trying to not build up hope, but yay for good Winston news!!!!

Winston in January

Winston's hasn't really changed since last month. He can still walk...not gracefully though, still has energy to run around the yard barking at nothing and will still eat.

Saturday evening really put our patience to the test. Winston would not settle down, meaning that it sounded like a heard of elephants upstairs. Then he'd walk to the stairway and cry and cry because he wanted to be with us, but didn't want to come downstairs to do so. We begging, pleaded, bribed and nudged until he decided that he'd come.
Twenty minutes later Winston decided that upstairs was where he wanted to be, he even made it up halfway before I made it to him to help him. John and I had a short conversation about what we're going to do with him. Nothing. He'll be with us until he's in pain or can't walk or looses control of his bowels or all of the above.

When I was brushing my teeth Winston threw up in the hallway, maybe the plastic hanger he ate a few days ago didn't agree with him, but it did seem to help him feel better for at least a few minutes. We knew that sleeping was going to be difficult with this pathetic behavior so ear plugs went in.
I think he just really wanted to be with us because he laid by the closed bedroom door and cried most of the night. John got up three times to make him go back to bed and said that once Winston was back in his bed he was quiet for a few more hours.

I think all the late night activity finally got to him and he slept all day Sunday.



Sunday everything was back to normal and Winston wasn't as needy. I just wish I could do more for him, but we really did all we could. I just have to keep saying that loving him, feeding him and giving him a warm bed to sleep on is enough for him.

I'm glad we did the gold beads because that means that we didn't give up on him .

Winston - not good news

Over the last week we haven't seen an improvement with Winston. He seems to be losing feeling in his right side. We noticed with his back leg first and over time he seems to be having problems with his front foot. He always hold it up when standing and if something is close to him he will lean again it, usually it being John or I.

We've stopped walking him because he's dragging his front right foot minutes after we start and the top of his nails are getting scuffed up. He was suppose to wear a neck brace for two weeks, but we took it off him after a week because it wasn't doing any good and just causing me grief with potty breaks.

John and I haven't talked about what we're going to do. John didn't want to talk about it over our weekend anniversary because he knew I'd be in tears. We'll be talking about it soon.

We did give Winston a bath the day before we put the neck brace on. I knew it was going to be a fight to get him into the bathroom so it had to be a night when both John and I could do it. John put on Winston's harness and while holding onto the sides or the harness, dragged him into the bathroom while I walked behind Winston so he couldn't backup if he decided.
Then John lifted Winston's front and back end into the tub where I put on his halti and attached him to the tub. We shouldn't really be using the halti, but I needed a way to keep him in the tub and once his halti is on he's usually an angel and won't fight me.
He was just fine in the tub and stood patiently while I bathed him. I changed into a swimming suit because I always end up soaked.

Once done I wanted him to step out of the tub on his own. He wasn't a happy camper about it.

He did eventually step out on his own and seemed much happier to be clean. Everyone else was pretty happy that he didn't stink anymore.

A couple steps back

The last few times of walks it was just me walking Winston so I wasn't really able to see how he was walking, but I did know that he still wasn't very graceful.
Last night John came with me and walked Winston so I could watch him. His walk is just terrible and I feel like it's getting worse. It's like he doesn't bend his right back knee so he swings his hips very far left to compensate. I will be taking a video and sending it to Dr. Durkes in the next few days.

Because of his walk I went into worry mode and watched Winston like a hawk last night, then finally around 8:30PM I sent Dr. Durkes this email.

Hi Dr. Durkes,


I'm writing the email instead of calling because I think if I call I'll forget to tell you everything that I want to tell you. We got the gold beads done on Winston on the 29th of October and his brace came off the Monday before Thanksgiving. I have seen some results, he stands faster, doesn't slip on the hardwood floors anymore, has more energy and more vocal, but I'm worried about what I've seen with him lately.

He's licking his back feet constantly and when walking he throws his right back leg out so he swings his hips far left to compensate and can't stay in a straight line to save his life. I can send a video of this in the next couple of days if you'd like to see. He also will start dragging his front feet if we're out more than 10 minutes. He still isn't good with the stairs and will need help getting back up, he'd much rather sleep upstairs on his bed anyway. I'm just wondering your thoughts.

I got a reply this morning saying that we need to put a neck brace back on for a couple of weeks (guess I should get that bath done then. I didn't find a place without ramps to the baths and I haven't forced the issue at home yet because I didn't want to jar his neck while he fought with us to get him into the tub. But Winston is stinky and needs a bath badly) and if we don't see improvement in a week then we'll put him on a small dose of prednisone. Mickey had/has to take the medication so I was aware of it and I'm thinking it will come to that.

Winston does have an insane amount of energy when walking so I really hope that that's a good sign. Last night he even charged a wooden fence to bark at the dogs behind it which he has NEVER done. I wasn't a fan of course and it took John and I to pry him away. I'll have to figure out a way to keep him more in control and still be able to use a harness. I'll probably ask K9 Lifeline since they're the ones who trained us with the Halti, which we loved and would still be using if we could.

I'll post the video of him walking soon. I really wish that we would have remembered to record him before the gold bead procedure like we were going to and a week after the procedure I thought I had recorded him, but instead I was just taking pictures.

The picture does show that his hip swings far, but it seems to be worse now and a video is always better.

Last night I was so depressed. Even after all the talk of not getting my hopes up is seems like I have. I was on the verge of tears all night while I watched him. Sleep also didn't come easy to me, but it never does when I have worrying on my mind.

This morning I'm feeling better, but I've talked myself into low hopes again. I just keep telling myself that if he stays stable then everything will be fine. That the procedure was worth it even if it doesn't work because at least we know we tried, I could never live with myself if we just gave up.

Winston day 29

Well I'm sure everyone wants a Winston update. His brace came off 8 days ago and Mr. Scaredy Cat did not like the cutting and ripping of the tape. I (little, tiny me) had to hold Winston's head still while John cut and tried not to stab Winston in the neck when he jerked away from me.

His brace was very thick and I must have been just the right amount of crazy because his skin didn't rot.

I'm not noticing huge amounts of progress, but I have to keep telling myself that it takes time. Winston will now walk through most of the upstairs with confidence and if he wants to stand up (he's a poop in the morning and would just rather sleep) he can usually do it in one try whereas before it would be at least 6 tries with lots of coaxing from me.
He still has his dreaded rooms, the office and bathroom, that I just haven't had the energy to tackle yet. He also hasn't decided that he wants to join us in the family room downstairs and I don't force it.

On Saturday I took him on one of his pre-bad walks, it's roughly 15 minutes and when he started getting bad he'd drag his front feet 5 minutes into it so we stopped. He seemed very happy to be out in the brisk late fall air and had more energy than I've seen in a while.
Winston was still all over the place while walking and probably looked like a gave him some strong liquor before the walk since he weaved next to my leg.
His scaredy cat ways are really draining though and I'm not sure if they'll go away on their own. While on the walk an elderly couple wanted to pet Winston, right after I said that he was very friendly and they took a step forward Winston jerked back. Luckily a truck was parked and stopped him/cornered him and gave me a second to figure out what he was scared of. The lady had a freaking grocery sack (filled with dog treats of all things!) and it terrified him. Once she handed him one of the treats he tentatively took a step forward to the man and decided that the situation was okay. Looks like John and I will have to start desensitizing him or he'll keep embarrassing me in public...sigh...

One comment that a vet tech made while we were getting Winston's ears fixed has really stuck with and bothers me. She asked, "Are you guys sure that you'll want to and be able to keep up with this [wobblers]?" Um...we drove 3,000 miles round trip to Indiana and emptied our savings account for him, yes I'm pretty sure.

Anywho, back to the walk, Winston kept prancing away from me until the leash tugged and then settling back to my side. Never pulling, but having a surprisingly good amount of energy. He did start dragging his front feet once we hit out street again, but that's an improvement to me. Once home he crashed, Winston's not used to any amount of activity so we have to build him back up.

My next project will be getting him a bath which he desperately needs. By the way, does anyone know of a self service place with tubs on the ground? I'm sure a ramp is something he'll be scared of and we'll make a huge scene trying to get Winston up it.

Winston's ear infection

When I got home from work last night I noticed that Winston's left ear was really red and drippy. I groaned and called the vet to make an appointment for the next day.

Getting Winston into the car was so much easier than it has been the last few months, with John's help it only took a minute or so to get him in instead of five and a fight. Maybe that does mean he's getting better.
Once at the vet he wouldn't move from their mat by the front door. Their floor is white painted cement and very shiny so that meant that Winston WAS NOT going to walk on it so they had to treat him right there.

Winston was not a happy camper, he wouldn't even let them take his temperature. The wobblers has made Winston scared of everything, my usually calm and easy going puppy has decided that we are no longer allowed to touch his ears or feet and the infection was making it worse. I suggested that they muzzle him because it wasn't going to get any easier.
It took 2 vet techs and the vet to man handle Winston into getting his ears cleaned out and putting the medication in. I'm pretty sure he thought we were trying to kill him. 

The medication they have now means that treatment is a one time thing instead of twice a day for a week. I thanked God right then and there. He was so stressed when we left the vet that he was a drooly mess.

 

This is the back seat of my car when we got home. 

I call Dr. Durkes Monday for Winston's three week check-up and to see if his brace can come off. 

Winston Day 14

Truthfully I haven't seen much improvement over the last week besides Winston being a little more active. We haven't walked him in the last few days because of the snow. His neck brace has to stay dry or his skin can rot under it and I'm being over protective.

Speaking of rotting skin, we've been hit hard by Jack Frost and have at least a foot of snow in our yard. A foot of snow that Winston wants to frolic in with the other pups, he whines and paws the door when the other two are out playing, breaks my heart. But with that neck brace he just can't.

I've tried my hardest to keep the plastic tucked in tight, but even with the few minutes he's out pottying he finds a way for it to come un-tucked. He's just too wild on his feet. He wants to be outside though and I can't get him to come in for at least 15 minutes. When he does finally come in, his brace is soaked under his chin and I shove towels in between it and his skin so it'll dry. I don't smell stinky skin so I hope it's good enough since he HATES the hair dryer.

He does seem to walk around more and we're trying to get him to come into areas he just refused to before. Since blocking the kitchen off he does walk through it with us now and acts like he wants to come downstairs. Mostly he just sits at the top and cries. He's only been down twice since his procedure, but I'm letting him decide when he wants to.
We've now tried the front room and in between the coffee table and couch, he's still not sure about it but will come if we pet his head while we walk with him. Next will be the dreaded office, the first room he refused to go into and hasn't set foot in in about 8 months.

He's also started this bad habit of crying at 2:00AM. The first few days we got up and let him out thinking he had to potty, but instead he just stands in the middle of the yard barking and we have to force him back inside before he pisses off all the neighbors. Now we ignore him and sleep with ear plugs, mean I know, but I don't think anything is really wrong with him.

Next Monday I'm suppose to call the vet to let him know how's he's improving and that will confirm if his neck brace can come off. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Indiana Trip Total

This would have cost less if I did more research and chose another vet to do the gold bead implant, but we went with Dr. Durkes because he's been doing it so long. I figured if we were going to do this might as well go with the best.
When researching the gold beads I found Mickey's blog and her itemized expenses really helped me out even if it is 6 years old so I figured I'd do one too.

Keep in mind that to do the actual surgery you have to have an MRI done and that's roughly $1,600 and the surgery is thousands of dollars, 5 to 10 is what I was told. So what we paid was cheap in comparison.
When it came to food we tried to go as cheap as possible. When hungry we'd stop at a grocery store and picked up sandwich fixin's and stole mayo and mustard packets from gas stations. We ate the free breakfast at the hotel and only ate out twice. We paid all of Ben's expenses since we asked him to come with us. Snack food was bought from the dollar store before the trip and was a really good tip I got from a travel website.
Travel charges from Utah to Indiana
Item                                                                                            Charge
Food                                                                                              $111
Travel snack food                                                                         $25
Car rental 5 days + pre paid tank of return gas                            $442.50
gas $379 at the most expensive, $3.19 cheapest, 12 tanks          $440.46
Hotel - 2 nights                                                                            $148.82
Entertainment (Chicago & Mt. Rushmore)                                 $34
Trip total                                                                                    $1,201.78

Medical Charges
Item                                                                                           Charge
Baytril 136 Chew Tablets                                                           $78
Office visit                                                                                  $78
Chem-profile-major                                                                   $95
Anesthesia                                                                                  $85
Extended anesthesia                                                                   $80
Gold implant - wobblers                                                            $850
GOLD hospital                                                                          $50
Pedicure - nail trim                                                                    $6
X-rays (we got these before the trip)                                        $289
Medical total                                                                           $1,611.00

Complete total                                                                        $2,812.78

If we didn't have to pay the $200 extra on the car rental we would have fallen right into our expected budget, but I'm not complaining. I really hope this helps anyone who's interested in getting the treatment done.

Just FYI we could have gone to an all inclusive cancun resort including flight for a week for the same price.

Winston Day 8

Over Winston's descent with wobblers he develop "security blankets" and now that he seems to be getting better we're trying to shake those blankets out.
When he's in the kitchen he only wants to be by the table and is scared to walk into the middle so we coaxed him with treats and then blocked his "blanket" with chairs.

We then used re-call to get him to cross back and forth over the floor to build his confidence.

I then wanted to see if he'd go down the stairs since the Doc said that that's one of the first things they get better at. I didn't even have to coax him, he went right down after me, but about midway down he decided that he was stuck.

Then it did take some coaxing and reminded me of when he was a tiny puppy learning the stairs.



Coming back up proved to be a little more difficult. I had to follow him and hold up/push his back end, but he did seem to know where he was placing his back feet for once.

We started taking him on short walks around the neighborhood with his harness. I was worried that we wouldn't have good control over him even though he's always been a pretty good walker (he does seem to get distracted when other dogs or people are around), but with a little tug on the harness and he's back on track. He also seems to be picking up his front feet more than he has ever has.

Let's keep hoping for the small improvements!

Coming Home

We got up around 8 so we could pack up, eat the free hotel breakfast and take off by 10 am. We had no plans to hurry and took our time. We wanted to sight see since most of our trip so far had been stuck in a hotel and we drove the 3 1/2 hours to Chicago.

Chicago skyline

We headed to Millennium Park and had to pay $23 to park, but it was worth it. 

 

Photo from Wikipedia, such a cool aerial shot. 

John Pritkzer Pavilion

Cloud gate AKA the bean

 

After Millennium Park we drove to Wrigley Field to take a look.

  They were hard to get a good picture of, but there are seats across the stadium on the houses!

After Chicago we drove the 935 miles and toll infested road (we spent $15 in tolls!) to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota that my dad suggested. It was a really long and boring drive, everything is mostly flat after Chicago. About 2AM none of us could stay awake and pulled over to a rest stop, which are few and far between in Minnesota, and slept for 3 hours. 

In Wall, South Dakota we stopped at a HUGE drug store. We spent at least an hour there looking at the odds and ends they had there. It was such a cute place that I bought a small ornament to place on a Christmas tree that we never put up to remind us of this adventure. 

Man working on monument.

After the monument we headed the 624 miles on home. After eating lunch at a rest stop after Lusk, Wyoming we really wanted to get home and took only gas stops and Winston potty breaks. We pulled into our drive way at 10:45pm, unloaded the car and crawled into bed. 

It was a good adventure and I really hope that in the end it'll all be worth it for Winston!

Day Of

The whole reason we drove 1,566 miles was to show up at this small clinic in the middle of nowhere.

We dropped Winston off at 8:30 to the calm, soothing Dr. Durkes. He put me at ease with his comforting personality and I instantly liked him.
Dr. Durkes was always wonderful to deal with. When I called the clinic the first time about Winston I was explaining to the receptionist what was happening and she asked if I wanted to speak with Dr. Durkes, thinking that she'd take my number and he'd call me back I waited on hold. I was surprised when Dr. Durkes answered the phone.

Anyway,  after Dr. Durkes explained the procedure and what to expect we left Winston in his capable hands.
We tried to find something to do with our time, but there's really not much to do in Marion Indiana and surprisingly a lot of places are closed on Monday.

We picked Winston up at 1PM and Dr. Durkes said that it was a good sign that Winston walked himself into the exam room. Winston was wobbly on his feet from the anesthesia, but happy to see us. He drunkenly walked to each of us and waited for us to pet him.
Dr. Durkes explained the after care, which isn't much. He said that Winston needs to keep the neck brace on for at least 3 weeks, shouldn't jump, wrestle with the other dogs if he moves his neck when he does so or shake toys. Other than that we should let him do what he feels comfortable doing.

Winston is now the proud owner of 400 gold plated magnetic beads placed along the vertebra in his neck. If they work we should start seeing results within a week; slippery floors and stairs usually come first and the wobbly rear end and clumsy turning is the last to fix itself. After giving me instructions to call him any time or day and paying a huge fee, we left to go back to the hotel.

 

We asked the Doc to trim Winston's nails while under because he stopped letting us. This proved to be a problem once we got him back to the hotel and a toe nail started pouring blood. We loaded Winston back into the car and had the nurse cauterize his nail, she also gave me a cauterizing stick in case he started bleeding again. Back at the hotel he did start bleeding again and since I had no idea how to use the stick properly I couldn't get it to stop so we ran over to wal-greens for wrapping so Winston wouldn't bleed all over the hotel room.

 looks pretty pathetic right?

 The spots on Winston's back are the implant spots, but not where the beads are implanted. The skin moved up to his neck when Winston was under, the implants are under the brace. 

Winston slept off the anesthesia while we watched Mirror Mirror and then we drove 20 minutes to another town to eat dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Winston didn't have much of an appetite and John had to hand feed him to get him to eat anything. 

Right now I don't want to say if I've seen improvement yet and jinx it, but he does seem to stand easier and want to walk around more.