Mike and I thank you for your great puppy rehab ideas. Zoe appreciates your get well wishes.
She's home now. We picked her up Thursday, just in time for a heap of snow. It's just what we needed to make her homecoming more interesting.
She was pretty out of it in the car on the way home, poor little peanut! We created a puppy hospital pen in the kitchen by moving out the table and chairs. Zoe has the cozy breakfast nook all to herself. She spent lots of time sleeping in there during the first few days. She came home on all kinds of pain meds and it's probably just as well that all she wanted to do was snooze. You can see how fur they shave off her in the pic below.
The "Comfy Cone" keeps her from licking at her sutures. She has a set of staples in her elbow and a zipper in her belly (from her spay). She really doesn't seem to mind wearing the cone. It's padded and has fancy velcro closures, worlds better than the old-style Elizabethan collars we used to use.
Mike and I took turns entertaining Zoe during her waking moments. On Friday I went grocery shopping and surprised Mike and Zoe by coming home with two parakeets. Zoe thinks it's pretty cool, having her very own birds. They're on the table where she can watch them from her pen. Birdies spend as much time watching her as she does watching them. But they were no substitute for Farley.
By Saturday morning she'd decided that life was boring without her brother. So on Sunday Farley came home. His favorite place to be is in Zoe's hospital pen! Mike and I take turns sleeping in there with them. Even though they can't play, they seem content to be in each other's company. Farley still gets his outdoor play time and leash walks, but Zoe is pretty much confined to the kitchen for now. She's remarkably good about it. I think having Farley home again has restored a sense of normalcy, though things still feel far from normal as we continue to make our way through Zoe's convalescence.
They're such sweet dogs, so loving with each other. Farley may be Zoe's best medicine yet.
BTW
Farley also loves the birdies.