Eye Infection

So River has an Eye Infection. He's not the happiest guy around right now. You can tell it itches him, because he makes a point of rubbing the left side of his face against any soft piece of furniture. D took him to the vet yesterday morning.

Apparently River freaked out when the vet went to put the eye drops in. He growled and looked aggressive; completely out of character as far as we have known him. The vet had to call two other guys into the examination room to hold River down while they gave him the drops. D told me that he wasn't looking forward to having to put drops in River's eye twice a day for the next week.

Last night was a disaster. River didn't get vicious like at the vet, but he was not happy. It felt a lot like when I had to push him into the kennel. We tried 6 times, to get the drops in. In the end we had to stop. D got so frustrated that he raised his voice at River who cowered but wouldn't come when he was called. D went to bed. River moped until I went to bed too. I had a serious case of guilt. I didn't sleep well at all last night, especially when I hear river leave our room to go sleep in the kitchen. Who was mad at who?

D leaves the house 1.5 hours before I have to get up. When I did get up, I called him and said he tried to get the drops in but he didn't try that hard. I know he feels awful for putting River through last night. I tried three times this morning.

The first was with a treat to get him to sit in front of me... I missed. The second I tried coming from behind him, but he was on to me and took off before I got close. The third time was pretty straight forward trickery. River went to lay down on his bed and I pet him. I pulled the eye dropper out and held it over his head asking him to look up. He did and drop. I got him. It didn't hurt him, he really only blinked for a minute and then looked at me with a "what the heck was that?" look. I gave him treats, and pets, and left the house feeling better because I'd given him the eye drop, but still bad cause I tricked him.

So I have learnt that getting your dog to take medication is hard. You know that they need it to get better, but they don't. You can reason with a person, but you can't with a dog. Until we make River learn that we won't do stuff that will hurt him, trickery is the only option...

... and it sucks.