Oh yes — the boy can eat when made to!
I worried all day yesterday about Bubba not eating in the past couple days. No, I don’t have children, but I guess this must be what is called maternal instinct - not sure about all that jazz.
When I got home last night, I decided one way or another, he was going to eat.
I got out a pouch of the Iams dog food out and dumped it in a bowl. Then me and the young man came to a very messy meeting of the minds.
Two peices of food, open mouth - forcefully if necessary - plop two pieces in his mouth, close his mouth and rub his throat making him swallow. The peices are very small so there is no worry about choking.
We did this for about a quarter of the pouch - Otis supervised and cleaned up what hit the floor. After this was over with, I don’t know who had more dog food on them, Bubba or me. While I was at it - I made sure he took his anti-inflamatory medication (which he was spitting up every time it was given him in the last 3 days), and an Advil.
Then it was clean up time. Our vet had given us some scrub wash to use on his scar after surgery to keep it clean and help it heal. I washed up his face and throat. He is loosing his hair where he had the radiation (they warned of us this), and he has a very ugly raw spot on his neck where he has been scratching. While I was “scrubbing” these areas, he’s grunting and moaning like he does when you scratch his ears — telling me something was feeling good to him.
I got him all cleaned up and let him go outside to get a drink of water. When he came back in, I put some neosporin on his “wounds” and he layed up on the couch and crashed for about two hours.
This morning … I got ready for battle again. Only this time, it wasn’t much of a battle. I got a couple peices down his throat like last night, but then after that he took the rest out of my hand. I didn’t make him take anymore than he wanted, so when he turned his head, I stopped. I cleaned him up again like last night, made him take his meds and sent him off on his merry way.
If this is what it’s going to take - then that’s what we’ll do. I’m just glad he’s eating something.
Once we get him healed up over this, the next step will be to take him back to the vet (yeah I know) and get his bottom eye teeth ground down some so they don’t jab his upper mouth when he eats.
