Why This Blog Was Created

Stella's recovery has been frightening, worrisome, even momentarily joyful. One minute we're celebrating the fact that we hit the bullseye administering Stella's drops, the next we're panicking as blood is oozing from her eyes.

There are very few websites chronicling a dog's recovery with this surgery so I thought that this would be helpful for parents of dogs with Entropion, but also those who have dogs recovering from other surgeries and conditions. I'll forewarn you that we are the quintessential helicopter parents, but we are just trying to do right by our dog. After all, she takes her duty of loving and protecting us very seriously, so we try to do the same for her.

We have also learned a lot from Stella's medical needs. I am hoping others will find our blog to be honest and meaningful. Stella said that she won't be too embarrassed sharing information or being pictured in her cone of shame if it helps other doggies and families in the process.

Stella getting good TV reception, two days post surgery.

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A Year of Healing

Since I am a firm believe that your body is constantly looking for ways to heal itself, my goal is to add pictures of Stella and see just how different, if anything, her eyes look in the months following surgery leading up to one year post operation. At a few different times we have needed to compress her eyes but otherwise find our eye surgery a distant nightma...memory. We are now onto bigger and better things- DOG TRAINING, but that is a different blog, for a different day. Of course, like any girl, Stella is generally only photographed on her good side.

1 Week Since Surgery- Why We're Not Celebrating

Now we were presented with the necessity of soaking her eyes every two hours, keeping the open wounds clean and avoiding scabbing, a dog in pain, and a mixture of guilt for putting her through this, so naturally we questioned everything about doing this surgery. No it wasn't an emergency. I kept reminding myself that we were advised, "if you don't do this, then..,." although it provided me with little comfort. I'd never be able to fully know that what we did in the long run would pay off- if in ten years Stella can still spot a crumb on the floor, I'd know this was worth it, but now, there are so many variables causing a cloud of doubt with this procedure. At this point I felt like as good as we were caring for her, it wasn't enough. Either we couldn't provide the appropriate care due to the nature of her personality (or any dog's for that matter. I don't care how well behaved your dog is, this recovery protocol is nearly impossible) or it w...

Day 11- Venturing Out

One of the tougher parts of caring for an injured pup is having one person watching over the dog at all times. At. All. Times. Our dog essentially became our newborn. No showers until the other parent comes home, one person on duty, another off, barely any sleep and so on. I should also add that it was never explicitly stated, "you must be home to watch your dog 100% of the time." We were only gently reminded, urged and hounded that, "yes, dogs scratch their eyes while wearing the cone," "Some dogs will break out of their cone," "Most problems occur from dogs causing trauma to themselves," "Wow... with a dog like Stella, she'll find a way..." We weren't going to take chances with how far we came. No, she wasn't really interested in getting her cone off, it only scared her when she trotted around the house or ate so zealously that her bowl flipped over into her face. But, I strongly urge that if your dog is anything like mine...

Entropion Surgery- Stella's Recovery

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