Julian was neutered on Friday.

Blondie Bear; in her sweet, misguided way, says he was nuttered: which is still correct if you think about it.

That first afternoon he was pretty sore and walked around stiff-legged on the back end.

He had a good nap that afternoon and was feeling better that evening. But he started licking at his incision. This has to be discouraged because keeping the incision wet promotes bacterial growth, which quickly becomes an infection. Since he’s due to transport out next Friday we really do not want that.

Try as I might to discourage this I could not keep him from it, so I had to install The Cone.

He hated that.

He went around deliberately scraping along things and hooking it on things trying to pull it off. Fortunately our Comfy Cone is made of some tough stuff.

Because he would not settle anywhere while coned we used it for short periods to reinforce the do-not-lick order. He did seem to catch on and would go for longer periods after we took the cone off. But he did go back to it — when he thought I wasn’t looking.

That night we was tired enough to just want to go to sleep. We all had a good nights rest. On Saturday we were back to the contest of wills.

One thing that did help was to take him out in the yard with me to chip brush and mow. As long as he felt he was “helping” by watching over me, he was sufficiently distracted that his wound didn’t seem to bother him.

Bedtime on Saturday did not go as well as the night before. He will NOT settle if wearing the cone. Amy suggested a tee shirt — put on backwards. I tried that but it took him just minutes to find a way to defeat it. So I was back to just watching him and reminding him not to lick.

It started in the bedroom. I was sitting up in bed reading. If he started licking I’d scold him and he’d stop. We did this until he went to sleep and stayed asleep long enough I figured he was down for the night. He’s usually very good about staying in his bed and sleeping all night, even when I get up and walk past him to go to the bathroom.

When it appeared he was out for the night, I settled in to do the same. As I was drifting off, I heard the dreaded sound, got up, and put a stop to it again. We tried this twice before I broke out the cone. That just got him agitated as he walked around the bedroom rubbing the thing against all the furniture trying to get it off.

I thought about taking the cone off and sleeping on the floor next to his bed, but figured that would tun into a free-for-all as all the dogs came to join the slumber party. So I took him out to the living room. No sense EVERYONE being kept up.

That didn’t work because Marie decided to come out too. She sat on the floor with him and petted him trying to get him to sleep. When she succeeded she went back to bed and I put my book aside: I was so tired I couldn’t focus anymore.

So we began a little dance of me dozing on the sofa and him sleeping on one of several dogs beds in the living room. If he got up and walked around (usually trying to sneak back to the bedroom and escape my monitoring), his nails clacking on the floor woke me up. If he started licking, that woke me up. I needed to say only, “Julian, come back out here.” and he’d return; or a stern, “JU-lian…” and he’d stop licking. He knew exactly what was going on.

His scrotum is filled with fluid and bothers him. That happens sometimes when the testicles are removed in older dogs (puppies don’t seem to be susceptible to this), as blood seeps out of vessels inside. If this seepage is minor, the vessels will clot and the fluid should be reabsorbed in about 10 days — if complications don’t occur. If this leakage becomes excessive it’s called a seroma and while it is not fatal, it is quite painful to the dog and annoying to the owner. If the scrotum over-inflates and turns purple, cold compresses must be applied frequently and it can take weeks to resolve.

So for the next few days anyway — until the incision is sealed up well — I need to be Julian’s side-kick, sticking close and reminding him to leave that bothersome bit alone.