Thursday, February 10, 2022

Wipeout

Roughhousing has its price.  ....and it's a hefty one. 

Shep is always excited when I come home from work. On Tuesday, 710 let him outside to greet me and I got him all riled up. 710 doesn't allow Shep to jump on him, but I do - and he's good about doing it only to me. 

When outside, after the initial riling, Shep usually does 3-4 zoomies around the perimeter of the back yard. But this time, he only made if a few dozen yards. 

We assume ice / snow played a factor - and speed. You'd never assume by just looking at him, but the little man is wicked fast. In a matter of seconds, we should have seen him round a corner, but we didn't - and then we heard whining, then crying. Naturally, we ran to him. 

At this point, Shep was holding up his paw and unable to put it down or bear weight on it. Immediately, I got on the phone and tried our vet - only open for one more hour, they had no openings, but made an appointment for the next morning. 
 
30 minutes later, we were on our way to the emergency vet office - open 24/7.  .....and there is a cost that comes with that, one we were willing to pay. While only 6 miles from us, as the crow flies, it takes 25 minutes. Or, eternity. 

Relief came when I saw the vet tech. She not only knew Shep from our vet's office, for years she took care of Petey. While I didn't feel great, I felt better.  I felt worse when they told us we'd have to leave him for 2-3 hour so the could do x-rays et al. 

I wasn't as worried about a broken leg, because dogs do well with casts. I was worried about a torn ACL, which would mean surgery and rehab. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of that cost, but it was more the trauma of putting Shep through that. 

As luck (?) would have it, he has some soft tissue damage. Enough for a week of drugs. Enough for no stairs for a week to 10 days (yeah, right), and no unsupervised walks (i.e. all outside time on a leash). 

I slept downstairs with him two nights ago and last night (or today, as I draft this). He's FINALLY using the $120 dog bed we bought him, which has only been used for storing toys. 

He's already on the mend. He limps, but now and then puts weight on his right paw. We took a small walk - five houses down and turn around. And he's still very very very very interested in squirrels. That could impede his recovery. 

I'm feeling much better than when I wrote my post for yesterday. I was anxious and nauseated on the "what ifs". 

710 is working from home this week, so that's good. We'll have to figure out next, as. don't think he'll be able to go to daycare with these kind of restrictions.  Still...........I'll have to suppress his urge to get riled up with me. I can't live with that guilt. 



Song by: the Surfaris

6 comments:

wcs said...

You may know that we're going through the ACL thing right now with Tasha. It's been 3 weeks since her surgery and we're doing our best at rehab restrictions. She already wants to run and jump, but we have at least 3 more weeks of confinement (on leash at all times and cages in the house. Ugh.

I'm glad Shep's injury is not as severe. Sending good thoughts!

Travel said...

Take care of the kids. One of my colleagues lost a cat yesterday, she is shattered,

James Dwight Williamson said...

Shep gets a lot of exercise for an aging young man.

Bob said...

Poor kid. Hope he heels quickly.

Joe B said...

Same scenario with one our guys about 2 years ago thought it was ACL but like Shep just a muscle tear. You are right about the "what ifs" sometimes I think they are the worst part of being a dog dad. Although trying to restrict their activities comes in a close second. They put him on two pain meds and in about a week things were back to normal so hang in there and things will be back to normal sooner than you think.

VoenixRising said...

Glad to hear he's on the mend and it wasn't as serious as our overactive imaginations tend to get when this sort of thing happens to our "kids." Hugs to you and all your family...