The Canine Chronicles

We actually had two days of sunshine, which helped my mood considerably, so I loaded up the dogs and took them to a local park with trails in a big wooded area. With all the fuckery of this year -- everyone's illnesses, Batman's tooth surgery, the car mess, our regular schedules and the constant rain -- I haven't had the boys out to run much as much as I should.

They were thrilled at being turned loose in this dog paradise. Mason, old as he is, looked like a joyful puppy, trotting back and forth, nosing around, finding stinky things. Dogs are so weird about stinky things. I think Batman saw a squirrel, because he was doing his best greyhound imitation when all of a sudden he stumbled, stopped short, and was yelping and howling like a four-legged banshee. I'd never heard Batman cry before. He's very stoic when in pain, and tends to mask it. When he broke that huge tooth off at the base, we didn't even know it until it fell out of his mouth.

I thought he'd gotten tangled in blackberry bushes, and took off to free him from the thorny bonds. When I got there, no blackberry bushes in sight, but he was stumbling, still yelping and crying. His leg was just hanging there, not moving. Shit. I'd never seen him actually look afraid before.

The son had seen it from a different angle. Batman had run into a jagged tree stump. His back leg got caught in it and probably got twisted. He couldn't walk, even on three legs.

Thank goodness I had my son with me. He carried Batman more than a quarter mile to the car. That may not sound like much, but you try carrying 70 pounds of scared, squirming Labradog in an uncomfortable position and make it around your local track one and a half times. There is no way I'd have been able to get both dogs out of there without him.
Anyway, in typical Batman fashion, this happened on a holiday weekend, and my vet was out of town. Sound familiar? Yeah, that's how we roll here. We described the symptoms to our vet, who was in Arizona, and who happens to be Male Offspring's girlfriend's mom. She said we could wait until morning as long as we kept him immobilized.

Luckily the vet's office was open the next day, President's Day, otherwise I'd be bending over for the emergency vet's version of a Sloe Comfortable Screw. There were no open appointments, but we were welcome to drop him off and they'd get to him between appointments. I really didn't want to drop him off, but it was either that or suffer the perverse ministrations of emergency vet. I dropped him off.

This is actually genius, from the vet's standpoint: they get to charge me for the non-existent appointment and in-house, drop-off care. They may not ram it home as hard as emergency vet, but they've got their own techniques.



Unbelievably, the leg is probably not broken. It's still swollen, but definitely not a clean snap, the bone feels okay. There is still the possibility of a hairline fracture, or a badly torn ligament, but they're thinking it's just a strained ligament. If he doesn't improve by tomorrow morning, I'll bend over again for further measures, but I'm hoping that won't be necessary. He is putting weight on it now, most of the time, although he still holds it up at times. He's got good drugs, so he doesn't care much, and he's got squirty stuff to put in the ear which had been bothering him. Yeah, he hates that part.

I'm just glad he's probably going to be okay, and that the son was with me.

Next time, Batman, can you please, for once, try for a weekday when our vet is in town? Thanks.