The Rocky Road to Recovery

Hey guys, I'm back again with another blog post!

So recently, a huge incident happened to Rocky and I. Today's post will cover the incident. Just a word of warning, some graphic pictures are coming up.

I had gone out with a night walk with Rocky. As we were passing by a forested area, a wild dog approached and stared at Rocky from a distance. I already felt like something was wrong because of the dog's body language. We have a lot of stray dogs in our area, but they're always in a pack and tend to shy away from people. This one was alone. I suspect that it was a male dog that had probably been exiled from the pack. He was staring down at Rocky with his tail pointing up.

Rocky looked back at the dog and barked, which triggered the dog to charge towards Rocky and attack him! I was alone and got a shock of my life. The dog grabbed Rocky by his head and shook him while Rocky was screaming. I remember adrenaline coursing through me. I had to seperate the dogs or Rocky might die. And I knew the normal techniques wouldn't work.

I proceeded to take the risk of wrapping my arms around the neck of the dog and jerking upwards violently to choke him. That worked and made him drop Rocky on the ground. I then kicked the dog in the ribs as hard as I could, and it yelped and bolted away.

Blood was pouring out from under Rocky's mouth. I immediately whisked him away to a 24 hour vet.

I brought him home that night after his wounds were cleaned temporarily and he was given an antibiotic injection. I could not afford the hospitalization fees. This is how he looked like on the first night. You can see the extensive bruising on one side of the face and the eye.

The next day, Rocky went in for Surgery. Here's the lowdown on the injuries:

- The hole under his mouth was so deep, it was all the way under his tongue.

- There are three holes under the mouth.

- The wounds at the side of the head was a few cm away from the skull

- His eardrum in that ear is ruptured and almost gone

I was very emotional about the whole thing. One of the holes under the mouth had a drain inserted inside so that pus and liquid could drain out. He has stitches on the side of the face, and under the mouth.

This is two days after surgery. He was looking much better and the bruising had gone down a lot. The bandage is there also to hold the drain in place. The mouth is swollen as you can see. We have to feed him throughout his whole recovery period.

Four days later, It was time to get his drain taken out. He was looking great and feeling so free without the bandage.

But just an hour after we got home.... disaster brewed.

The cone accidentally touched at his wounds which made him go into a panic... and slash open all his wounds as he tried to get the cone off and away. We had to rush him back to the vet and unfortunately, he had to go under General Anaesthesia. They had to redo the whole surgery.

All this happened during my birthday, by the way. It's really been the worst birthday ever for me, such a trying period of my life. I really broke down multiple times.

Thankfully my parents were there to help me and they even tried to help defray the costs, especially my mum. I'm really grateful to them for that time.

The re-stitching was done again, and done very well this time. It would be very hard for him to ever reopen this type of work. The vet really did a good job.

He gave himself a new wound at the side of his mouth as well which needed stitching.

It's day 13 since the whole thing happened, and day 10 since the 2nd surgery. Rocky is doing really well, his fur is growing back well and some of the scabs have come off. 4 more days to removing his stitches, fingers crossed that nothing happens till then.

In all, I spent $2000 on his surgeries. And all he could offer me is his silly old smile. -_-

I'm pretty proud of myself today that I can say I fought off a dog on my own. Haha... and another takeaway from this whole incident is that I need to build an "emergency fund" for this kind of things. Just in case, you know.

Hope you didn't get too scared from reading about this. Luckily, all ended well. Bye now!