Luna – Healing, but watching for decline

With a prognosis of a Spindle Cell Sarcoma, we know that our time with Luna is limited.  The fact is, most canines don’t live long enough in comparisons to their humans.  But, we are realistic that changes can happen quickly, so we need to make each day important for her interactions. Our goal for Luna is to heal the incision, get her on a comfortable routine of feeding, social visits and taking medications to make her comfortable and reunite her with her retired pack mates.  We use the canine stress dictionary to help staff define her behavior.  We have definitely witnessed an increase in displacement behaviors, like branch-chewing and know that stress can impact healing. The photo for the log was taken by Katelyn Schwab, who was assisting in the lab monitoring Luna’s behavior to some ongoing work in the wolf yard.