What were you doing on July 8th, 09 at 10:11 and 12 seconds? (7-8-9-10-11-12)
We were comforting our dog who we had just brought home from the hospital.
Right before we left for our trip to Italy my parents had called and told me that Desiree had gotten hurt pretty badly. She’s usually pretty good about staying in their yard “off leash” while they are doing yard work; plus, they have a “natural fence” at the end of their yard- a 12 foot drop off cliff. But that day something down in the woods had gotten her attention enough for her to go over the edge. I’m guessing a turkey or raccoon. When she didn’t come back after awhile, my hero of a daddy had to go down and search for her. He found her laying in the leaves and mud whimpering and giving my daddy big ol’ puppy dog eyes pleading her him to come help her. He had to carrier her all the way back up to the house (that was no easy feat). She couldn’t walk at all and was in so much pain that she’d cry unless someone was laying next to her with their hand on her. Once again, a big old thank you to my daddy for sleeping on the floor with her all night. They were worried that she had broken her back, I’m glad they didn’t tell me this since I was worried enough about her as it was and glad I’d be home in two weeks. They got her to the vet the next morning and x-rays and their best diagnosis at the time was a badly sprained ankle.
She was up and walking but with a pretty bad limp by the time we had arrived home, the following day I took her back to the vet for a follow up appointment. They re-did some x-rays and test and determined that she had torn her ACL. So she had surgery to repair it. Poor girl.
To add insult to injury she had to wear one of those funny pet cones so she’d leave the stitches alone. But even worse than that, after Mommy and Daddy had abandoned her for months, they finally come home but bring this stupid annoying Egyptian cat with them who thinks it’s entertaining to play with her cone on her head while she’s all hopped up on pain killers.
The surgery really helped though. She was able to walk right out of the vets office with only a little limp and was doing stairs and short walks in just a few days. But we learned that it is next to impossible to keep a bandage on a dogs’ knee, especially when that dog just won’t lie down and take it easy. In addition to the fact that we found out that Desiree is allergic to latex! So our vet told us it was ok to abandon the bandaging idea after a few days of frustration. But a new frustration arose. Her first set of stitches came totally undone and we had to rush her to the vets office once more and they put staples in them. A few days later, she had managed to get a few of the staples out herself so we took her back once again and tried a different type of suture.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of time this summer with my dog and going to the vets office, but I am sure glad I was home and able to be with her.
