So Alex Hasn't QUITE Achieved Old-Man Status Yet.
Alex had his vet appointment this afternoon for his sore leg. He's been favoring his right hind leg a lot lately; when he first gets up, he'll limp and hold the leg off the ground. He is sometimes slow to get up, and once when we pushed him over on the bed, he showed his teeth, like we'd hurt him. We assumed that, since he's seven, he maybe had a touch of arthritis, a theory compounded by the fact that my sister's dog--who is around his age--was just diagnosed with the same.
But the vet checked his leg and pronounced that he has injured his ACL: not torn it, which would require surgery, but just strained it. So instead of having an old man's arthritis, he has an athlete's injury! (He is named after Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.) It's not surprising given the way he plays. He's on anti-inflammatories for two weeks and not allowed to run, play, or do anything more strenuous than a 5- to 10-minute walk on-lead or go outside to use the bathroom. The proscription on running and playing is going to be the hardest part, since he tears around the yard on his own and plays hard with his brother both in and out of the house. (They get in trouble pretty much every night during dinner for playing tug with inappropriate toys or the famous "ad hominem attack," when they wrestle in the house, which they are not allowed to do, with their combined weight of 150 lbs. They go into the living room where we can't see them, but I can hear their mouths snapping open and closed at each other and will holler, "No ad hominem attack!" at which point they'll come back into the dining room all wide-eyed and innocent to be reminded to "Attack the toy, not the man.") Dr. Baker is worried that he could tear his ACL, which would require an expensive surgery to fix. So we have to endure the two-week torture of keeping him from running and playing, she said, to avoid the much worse torture of paying for an expensive surgery. (Alex has health insurance, so presumably that would cover all or most of it, but we'd still rather avoid it altogether if we can.) He'll go back for a re-evaluation in two weeks.
Meanwhile, Phil was sitting on the floor next to me and let out this squeaky fart, which scared him enough to propel him to his feet and partway across the room, looking behind himself like, "WTF was that??!"
Phil went with us to the vet because, when we opened the door to let Alex out, Phil ran out too and to the car. Alex had his leash on, so that was the logical conclusion! Since we got Phil at 9 weeks, I can probably count on one hand the number of times he's been separated from Alex, and he seems incapable of wrapping his brain around the idea of Alex going somewhere separate from him. So we just let him have the ride in the car.
Completely unrelated, but today is the first full day of spring break! \0/ It's pretty nice outside, in the mid-50s and sunny. We only ended up with a dusting of snow the other day, thank goodness, and all the plants that looked damaged by the deep freeze have pretty much sprung back. It's supposed to get progressively nicer during the weekend. Tomorrow, we're planning to go to Gettysburg for a late lunch or early dinner at the French restaurant and then to see The Grand Budapest Hotel at the Majestic. Saturday, we are going back into Baltimore (twice in a week, which might be a record!) on the lightrail for lunch at a highly rated Indian restaurant, a visit to the Walters Art Museum for a bookbinding exhibit, back on the lightrail to the Inner Harbor, where we plan to visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, then take the water taxi across to Fells Point to meet Pat and Chanel for a beer festival at Max's Bar and a slice of pizza at the legendary BOP (Brick Oven Pizzeria). And Sunday, continuing what we both have decided is a nice tradition of enjoying nature on the day of Easter for us (since we don't celebrate Easter but most things are closed that day), that we started last year when we went to the Grand Canyon, we are going to ride our bikes and have a picnic lunch along the North Central Railroad Trail. I guess an upside to us being out of the house is that Alex will be forced to stay in!
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/336881.html
But the vet checked his leg and pronounced that he has injured his ACL: not torn it, which would require surgery, but just strained it. So instead of having an old man's arthritis, he has an athlete's injury! (He is named after Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.) It's not surprising given the way he plays. He's on anti-inflammatories for two weeks and not allowed to run, play, or do anything more strenuous than a 5- to 10-minute walk on-lead or go outside to use the bathroom. The proscription on running and playing is going to be the hardest part, since he tears around the yard on his own and plays hard with his brother both in and out of the house. (They get in trouble pretty much every night during dinner for playing tug with inappropriate toys or the famous "ad hominem attack," when they wrestle in the house, which they are not allowed to do, with their combined weight of 150 lbs. They go into the living room where we can't see them, but I can hear their mouths snapping open and closed at each other and will holler, "No ad hominem attack!" at which point they'll come back into the dining room all wide-eyed and innocent to be reminded to "Attack the toy, not the man.") Dr. Baker is worried that he could tear his ACL, which would require an expensive surgery to fix. So we have to endure the two-week torture of keeping him from running and playing, she said, to avoid the much worse torture of paying for an expensive surgery. (Alex has health insurance, so presumably that would cover all or most of it, but we'd still rather avoid it altogether if we can.) He'll go back for a re-evaluation in two weeks.
Meanwhile, Phil was sitting on the floor next to me and let out this squeaky fart, which scared him enough to propel him to his feet and partway across the room, looking behind himself like, "WTF was that??!"
Phil went with us to the vet because, when we opened the door to let Alex out, Phil ran out too and to the car. Alex had his leash on, so that was the logical conclusion! Since we got Phil at 9 weeks, I can probably count on one hand the number of times he's been separated from Alex, and he seems incapable of wrapping his brain around the idea of Alex going somewhere separate from him. So we just let him have the ride in the car.
Completely unrelated, but today is the first full day of spring break! \0/ It's pretty nice outside, in the mid-50s and sunny. We only ended up with a dusting of snow the other day, thank goodness, and all the plants that looked damaged by the deep freeze have pretty much sprung back. It's supposed to get progressively nicer during the weekend. Tomorrow, we're planning to go to Gettysburg for a late lunch or early dinner at the French restaurant and then to see The Grand Budapest Hotel at the Majestic. Saturday, we are going back into Baltimore (twice in a week, which might be a record!) on the lightrail for lunch at a highly rated Indian restaurant, a visit to the Walters Art Museum for a bookbinding exhibit, back on the lightrail to the Inner Harbor, where we plan to visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, then take the water taxi across to Fells Point to meet Pat and Chanel for a beer festival at Max's Bar and a slice of pizza at the legendary BOP (Brick Oven Pizzeria). And Sunday, continuing what we both have decided is a nice tradition of enjoying nature on the day of Easter for us (since we don't celebrate Easter but most things are closed that day), that we started last year when we went to the Grand Canyon, we are going to ride our bikes and have a picnic lunch along the North Central Railroad Trail. I guess an upside to us being out of the house is that Alex will be forced to stay in!
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/336881.html