Oogy_ The Dog Only a Family Could Love - Larry Levin [48]
I was allowed to visit him every day, and each day he grew stronger. He wore an E-collar, a clear plastic protective device that radiated outward from his neck. (Its name is derived from the ruffs Elizabethan men sported atop their tunics.) This was to prevent Oogy from scratching, biting, and licking at the sutures. It made Oogy look like a 1950s-style space doggy. I would let him out of his cage and spend as much time as I could spare sitting on the floor next to him, trying to stay out of the way of the staff as they performed their duties. Oogy would curl up next to me while I read a book or magazine with one hand and stroked him gently with the other; it was the best I could do to try to encourage and to calm him. The fact that he was sedated with painkillers no doubt helped to reduce the stress that resulted from being away from us, from having to sleep in a steel box, and from the demands of the surgery itself. Although I could see in his face and read in his body language that he was miserable, he never indicated any anxiety or discomfort.
He trusted us. All of us.
Once he was allowed to come home, Oogy still had to wear the E-collar. In almost comical fashion, he walked into doorjambs with it and banged it on walls or against cabinets, eventually cracking it into pieces. I replaced it with a somewhat smaller one so that he would have less trouble navigating the house. We removed the E-collar when Oogy ate, and after several days, we would remove the collar when we were sitting with him. This allowed him to feel more comfortable, and if he started to scratch or lick his stitches, we could stop him and put the collar back on. Before we went to sleep, we would put it on him for the night.
Ten days after the surgery, Ardmore removed the stitches. The white fur was growing back.
Oogy’s face is an unavoidable, constant reminder of what he has had to endure. His face is what he has had to endure. Now there is a small black hole where Oogy’s left ear used to be. On the right side of his head, the undamaged side, his coat is feathered behind the ear. On the left side, however, where the skin of his neck has been pulled forward, the feathering is just behind his eye and in front of where the ear would be if he had one. Instead of being smooth and seamless, the line of feathering on his left side is ragged and slightly raised, like an aerial photograph of sea foam washing up on a shoreline. This is actually the line that represents where the two parts of Oogy’s face were sewn together. It runs from the top of his skull to the underside of his jaw. Because part of his jawbone had been broken off, removing support for Oogy’s facial structure, the shape of his face shifted as he grew. In addition, the flesh and muscle on that side of his forehead atrophied from lack of blood flow, gradually causing the left side of the top of Oogy’s skull to slope downward, whereas the left side of his face has been pulled slightly upward from the surgeries. As a result, he appears lopsided. His right upper jowl hangs below his lower jaw in normal fashion, but his left one does not; his left eye is not parallel to his right eye but is slightly higher on his face and somewhat larger. The left side of his large black nose angles upward while the right side does not. Viewed straight on, he looks like a portrait that has been torn in half but not quite properly aligned before being taped back together. This misshapen visage has also given him what one woman described as “a permanent smile.” It’s there, especially from the front, a slight turnup at the corner of his mouth, as though he is hearing some subtle, wry joke to which no one else is privy. The flesh where his muzzle and neck