Joella, my retired Service Dog, had surgery on one of her back legs a while back. Nearly a year ago I think. Anyway, she’s been doing fine from that but this weird winter weather we’re having is making both of us feel the pain. Then last week she started walking funny with her back legs and started falling down. So since Lorna was taking today (Friday) off, I made an appt. for Jo at the vet’s.
They changed the appt. back an hour but with everything else we had to do, the extra hour gave us a chance to rest. Just as we were getting ready to go, it started snowing. Nothing new and different around here (and most of the nation it seems!) but when it started to actually lay, we opted to take Lorna’s Subaru instead of My Truck. Besides, it was lower to the ground and easier to get Jo up into it. We had no trouble going there, some white spots but not bad. Poor Lorna’s been driving so much in it lately! But by the time we were done and leaving, it was pretty nasty out.
But I’m ahead of myself. We love our vet. Dr. Knepshield at Charlotte Street Animal Hospital and all the gang there are, like, the best. Dr. K got down on the floor with Jo and started messing with her legs and…we wound up muzzling Jo. It hurt that much. That and she wasn’t happy, didn’t want to be there, and she hates to have her feet messed with. Hates it. So on went the muzzle. What Dr. K found was that Jo had a toe that was up really high and the entire foot was odd. Because of the first round of x-rays that showed something but we weren’t sure what (Rotties are prone to bone cancer), they knocked Jo out and x-rayed her again.
There’s these tiny little bones in dogs’ feet called sesamoids. We humans have them too and, actually, the kneecap is one. Anyway, one of these tiny bones was out of place. She sent the x-rays off to the ortho vet (the same one who did Jo’s surgery) for consult but we won’t hear back until Tuesday. These bones can come out of place because of a fracture (which she didn’t see) or from an injury that inflamed the foot and the bone becomes displaced because of the swelling. If this had happened to Jo’s bad leg, we would have noticed it immediately because she would not put weight on it. But because she cannot stand on just the bad back leg, she was forced to walk on both back legs. And because they both hurt and she was constantly dancing to not walk on either one, that’s why she was falling down a lot. I can sooooo relate.
The good news is that Jo’s hips look fine for a dog her age! No change at all from the previous x-rays. Her bad leg (the ankle) looks the same, no better no worse, so that’s good. And other than the foot, her other leg looks the same too. So this is excellent news.
The bad news is that Jo has a cast on her foot. They put on a special cast that allows her to put full weight on it and it is rounded to help her walk. But a stoned Jo with a cast does not a walking dog make. They gave her the anesthesia to knock her out plus a heavy duty pain killer to deal with the pain she’d have from them manipulating that foot so much and from the extreme tenderness she’s having with the bad leg. She was so stoned, they had to carry her out to the car on a stretcher!
Now back to the weather. The roads were bad. Mostly slush but some icy places and, of course, all the people getting out of work and trying to go home. What normally takes 20-30 minutes tops took an hour and 45 minutes! The traffic was unbelievable. We finally got out of the traffic near our last turn (at Leicester’s only red light) when the minivan in front of us also turns. We give him plenty of room to make the hill (it’s a horrid hill in this kind of weather) and…he doesn’t make it. We sit and watch him sit and spin. Finally, with me hungry, Jo whining, Lorna’s patience at a minimal, we go around. That little Subaru just went right by him, not a single spin or slip. We hated to leave them like that but, well…. Anyway, we made it home, got Jo and me in the house, and all is well.
I’ll have pics of the girl tomorrow. She wasn’t at her best tonight (she was so freakin’ stoned).