Recovery phase

Sirius is convalescing after his ordeal this morning, athough a little groggily. Dr Vet Snr said he would start to wake up about half an hour after his operation and right on time his eyes started to open. He thought about moving and twitched his legs experimentally but couldn't actually do anything for another half an hour more.

Several times he tried to lift his head only to gently lay it down again with his eyes half closed in an expression of "Did you get the number of that truck that hit me?

Eventually he tried to stand up. He was like a new cria learning to walk for the first time, poor lad. There are no pictorial records of this as we had to assist him in not crashing into shed walls, falling through the wire or getting his legs tangled up. Several times he did get tangled up and flopped over into the straw

So he decided it was all too hard for now and laid in the Autumn sunlight for a while warming up. Anaesthetic can mess with an animal's temperature regulating facility and keeping them warm can be a challenge, hence his confinement to a shed out of the wind. He was quite happy with that for a while thank-you-very-much so we left him alone for an hour longer.

Meanwhile Orion paced about the yard looking for his friend in a worried-alpaca manner. 

We let them get a visual for reassurance but as Ori was so concerned we didn't want him trying to rouse Siri to his feet too early and kept him just outside.

Eventually Siri wanted to stand badly enough that he didn't move his feet when upright, just in case. Slowly he got stronger and then he got thirsty. I put a tub of water in the shed and he got caught between it and the wire. SO rearranged the bar to suit the patron and all was well.

By evening Siri was walking about, grazing and not swaying. He wolfed into his favourite lucerne hay and was still eating during every evening check, obviously making up for lost time.