Update:

Bingo finally relaxed enough for him to properly sleep by around 2-am, so after an obsessively long time listening to his contended snores at the door (then on the foot of the stairs, then half way up the stairs, etc. etc.)  I trouped upstairs went to bed myself. I didn't sleep well, though; I kept waking up and would spend several minutes afterward staring at my (wide open) bedroom door concentrating hard in case I missed any small sign of distress. I think I got about four broken hours in total. Thank goodness that mother agreed to take care of him for a couple of hours this morning so that I could catch up; by the time 8:30-am rolled around I felt really, really God awful and about ready to drop. Alice Collison needs at least 5 hours sleep to function; 6 to function properly. And seven to actually feel good.

Anyway, Bingo is much, much better; eating and drinking well and apart from walking a bit funny very steady on his feet. The drugs given to him for the operation (apart from an additional dose of painkillers that I gave him this morning) have now completely worn off and so he feels a lot less grotty and more able to relax; which is what he is doing right now. One thing he has taken to doing though, is crying at me incessantly to make sure that I concentrate on nothing else but him. Last night, OK; he had just had an operation, so no wonder. And this morning, OK; the painkillers would have worn off and his poor foot was probably hurting him badly. But the funny thing was that when it became impossible for me to be
there holding him - like last night for instance, at around 1:30-am when I realized that desperate crying notwithstanding, I was nodding off in my chair. Or this morning, when mother took the helm and I staggered upstairs, away from him - rather than becoming even more desperate, even more miserable, he actually calms down. No crying. No writhing. No desperate pleading stares. Nothing. Just a sleepy yawn and a re positioning before drifting off into dreamland again. Then the second I return: crying, writhing, desperate pleading stares, the full works.
    There was no sign of this, mother assured me, while I was gone. She was expecting there to be; after all, he felt ill and I was his mummy and I'd gone somewhere. But nope; not a sign. It only started two and a half hours later when I came back again. After deliberating on this for a bit - with Bingo whining his head off and pawing at me with aggressive vigour while I soothed him - we remembered that, y'know what; this was what happened last time. Every damn bit of this happened last time.
    Conclusion: my darling dog is acting. 'Hamming It Up', I believe the phrase is. Why, Lord only knows; he knows that I adore him and that I've been turning myself inside out worrying about him... =sighs=

I mean, yes; he probably feels pretty shitty. And yes, his paw will feel bloody uncomfortable even with the doggy version of morphine pumping through his system. But the moment it was suggested to me I could see it as plain as day. My beautiful boy is employing a very cold and calculated method of manipulation to make me do exactly as he wants. And the moment I realized this and told him that I did, the crying calmed down and he fell asleep and began contentedly snoring again.
    Go figure.

=sighs again=

Alice xxx