Jaz the Gimp
Jaz is currently a three-legged dog, as he has hurt his paw in some way. We are not sure exactly how he did it. It could have been one of two goofy/buttheaded incidents yesterday evening.
First, I was taking him for his evening walk, and on our way home, we heard Chris coming up behind us. Jaz stopped, turned around, and nearly choked himself trying to get to Chris, and when got to Chris, he actually jumped into the air, bodyslammed Chris' thigh, bounced off, and landed on his side on the pavement. I mean, just flat THUNKED onto the pavement. I could hear the smack when he landed, but he didn't appear to notice, just jumped up and continued dancing. He was pretty excited to see Chris. He was also a little worked up, because not only had we run into the neighbor cat on our way out, we had also sniffed noses with another neighbor's puppy on the way home. So he was already pretty hyped up to begin with, and then meeting Chris unexpectedly just sent him over the edge.
It all happened pretty fast, but I'm almost positive Jaz landed on the side that is now giving him problems. But there was no limping on the way back to the apartment, that we noticed. I was surprised that he could hit the concrete that hard and show no ill effects, and I was bemused by his extreme goofiness, but he seemed to be fine, so I wasn't worried. He trotted right home and ate dinner.
Then, goofiness resumed. I don't know why he was so hyper last night. Jaz decided that he really needed to be on the couch with me, so he attempted to jump diagonally across me to land on the couch. The problem was, he snagged the computer cord as he jumped, so he didn't quite make the couch. But it didn't seem as though he landed too badly, and he didn't cry. He just shook it off and went into the bedroom. A few minutes later, I called him to me, and he came to snuggle close to me - closer than usual, come to think of it - and then went back to the bedroom. It was at this point that we noticed a little limp. We figured he had just pulled something.
By 10:00, the limp was much more pronounced. He was refusing to put any weight on his left front paw at all, and we also observed that he seemed pretty subdued. He'd spent the evening in the bedroom asleep, but that's hardly unusual. It was clear that he didn't feel well; but he wasn't hot, he wasn't throwing up, his foot didn't look too swollen, and he was staying off his leg, so I decided to wait and go to the regular vet in the morning. Emergency vets are wonderful if you need them, but they charge three times as much, and I was pretty sure Jaz wasn't going to die of this. If he'd been crying, panting, off his food, unconscious, or his paw had been badly swollen, I would have loaded him up in the car and taken him to the emergency vet forthwith. In the absence of any of that, I carried him downstairs for his final ablutions before bedtime. He was okay to get back upstairs on three legs. The poor little guy had to suffer some pain, because I didn't want to give him anything, like baby aspirin, that would take away the pain and encourage him to get on that foot again. But he slept fine. He even milked the situation a little, turning around to look at me like "Aren't you going to help me onto the couch?", but I noticed that he got up on the couch just fine with his three good legs, and he slept all right too. He's such a little drama queen. Emo dog.
The vet confirmed today that it doesn't seem like anything is broken, but Jaz is on restricted exercise (no stairs) and he has a prescription for painkillers. We can't rule out the possibility of a hairline fracture in one of his toes, but the vet said that since he will put weight on his left front paw if he is forced to, that is a pretty good sign that we're dealing with only soft tissue injury versus a break. She says that when dogs break their bones, they will fall over rather than rest weight on that foot. Having had a fractured foot myself, I understand that. The pain really is too high to put weight on a fractured foot.
Oh, but while we were there? She detected arthritis in Jaz's right front elbow, and also found a loose tooth that we're going to extract next month. So while today was a cheap visit, next month won't be so cheap. These are the hazards of owning a senior dog. I'm checking our vet insurance policy to see how much of that tooth extraction will be covered. I know it won't be everything, but it should be at least a couple of hundred dollars. But there's no question that we need to have it done. It'll probably fall out on its own, but we don't want to risk him developing an abcess and getting really sick. Jaz will also be going on glucosamine in the near future to slow his arthritis.
I worked from home today to be able to take Jaz to the vet, and also so that I could be home to see how he reacted to the painkillers. I wasn't comfortable with giving him narcotics and taking off. Thank goodness for remote computer access.
So now I have a dog who is gimping around on three legs and looking pitiful, holding the fourth paw suspended like he has something stuck in it. And one of us has to carry him up and down the stairs three times a day to do his business. It's a good thing we've always been strict with his food, so he's maintained his weight at 28 pounds. I don't know how we'd cope with doing this for a 90-pound dog. I do have a picture of Jaz gimping, but my picture service is not cooperating with the upload, so I'll have to post it later. I'm off now to go make a warm compress to put on his foot, as the vet suggested. I am making a warm compress for a dog. Good grief.
EDIT: Here he is with his little gimpy self. He holds that paw up like that all the time and limps around on his other three legs.
a href="http://pics.livejournal.com/azulaco/pic/00002y9e/">
First, I was taking him for his evening walk, and on our way home, we heard Chris coming up behind us. Jaz stopped, turned around, and nearly choked himself trying to get to Chris, and when got to Chris, he actually jumped into the air, bodyslammed Chris' thigh, bounced off, and landed on his side on the pavement. I mean, just flat THUNKED onto the pavement. I could hear the smack when he landed, but he didn't appear to notice, just jumped up and continued dancing. He was pretty excited to see Chris. He was also a little worked up, because not only had we run into the neighbor cat on our way out, we had also sniffed noses with another neighbor's puppy on the way home. So he was already pretty hyped up to begin with, and then meeting Chris unexpectedly just sent him over the edge.
It all happened pretty fast, but I'm almost positive Jaz landed on the side that is now giving him problems. But there was no limping on the way back to the apartment, that we noticed. I was surprised that he could hit the concrete that hard and show no ill effects, and I was bemused by his extreme goofiness, but he seemed to be fine, so I wasn't worried. He trotted right home and ate dinner.
Then, goofiness resumed. I don't know why he was so hyper last night. Jaz decided that he really needed to be on the couch with me, so he attempted to jump diagonally across me to land on the couch. The problem was, he snagged the computer cord as he jumped, so he didn't quite make the couch. But it didn't seem as though he landed too badly, and he didn't cry. He just shook it off and went into the bedroom. A few minutes later, I called him to me, and he came to snuggle close to me - closer than usual, come to think of it - and then went back to the bedroom. It was at this point that we noticed a little limp. We figured he had just pulled something.
By 10:00, the limp was much more pronounced. He was refusing to put any weight on his left front paw at all, and we also observed that he seemed pretty subdued. He'd spent the evening in the bedroom asleep, but that's hardly unusual. It was clear that he didn't feel well; but he wasn't hot, he wasn't throwing up, his foot didn't look too swollen, and he was staying off his leg, so I decided to wait and go to the regular vet in the morning. Emergency vets are wonderful if you need them, but they charge three times as much, and I was pretty sure Jaz wasn't going to die of this. If he'd been crying, panting, off his food, unconscious, or his paw had been badly swollen, I would have loaded him up in the car and taken him to the emergency vet forthwith. In the absence of any of that, I carried him downstairs for his final ablutions before bedtime. He was okay to get back upstairs on three legs. The poor little guy had to suffer some pain, because I didn't want to give him anything, like baby aspirin, that would take away the pain and encourage him to get on that foot again. But he slept fine. He even milked the situation a little, turning around to look at me like "Aren't you going to help me onto the couch?", but I noticed that he got up on the couch just fine with his three good legs, and he slept all right too. He's such a little drama queen. Emo dog.
The vet confirmed today that it doesn't seem like anything is broken, but Jaz is on restricted exercise (no stairs) and he has a prescription for painkillers. We can't rule out the possibility of a hairline fracture in one of his toes, but the vet said that since he will put weight on his left front paw if he is forced to, that is a pretty good sign that we're dealing with only soft tissue injury versus a break. She says that when dogs break their bones, they will fall over rather than rest weight on that foot. Having had a fractured foot myself, I understand that. The pain really is too high to put weight on a fractured foot.
Oh, but while we were there? She detected arthritis in Jaz's right front elbow, and also found a loose tooth that we're going to extract next month. So while today was a cheap visit, next month won't be so cheap. These are the hazards of owning a senior dog. I'm checking our vet insurance policy to see how much of that tooth extraction will be covered. I know it won't be everything, but it should be at least a couple of hundred dollars. But there's no question that we need to have it done. It'll probably fall out on its own, but we don't want to risk him developing an abcess and getting really sick. Jaz will also be going on glucosamine in the near future to slow his arthritis.
I worked from home today to be able to take Jaz to the vet, and also so that I could be home to see how he reacted to the painkillers. I wasn't comfortable with giving him narcotics and taking off. Thank goodness for remote computer access.
So now I have a dog who is gimping around on three legs and looking pitiful, holding the fourth paw suspended like he has something stuck in it. And one of us has to carry him up and down the stairs three times a day to do his business. It's a good thing we've always been strict with his food, so he's maintained his weight at 28 pounds. I don't know how we'd cope with doing this for a 90-pound dog. I do have a picture of Jaz gimping, but my picture service is not cooperating with the upload, so I'll have to post it later. I'm off now to go make a warm compress to put on his foot, as the vet suggested. I am making a warm compress for a dog. Good grief.
EDIT: Here he is with his little gimpy self. He holds that paw up like that all the time and limps around on his other three legs.
a href="http://pics.livejournal.com/azulaco/pic/00002y9e/">