My Furbaby

Well I know that I still haven't posted about my thoughts to the appointment I had last week, but something more important (at least to me) has come up.  My dog has an injury that has taken my attention away from my pain and more focused on keeping him okay.  First off I should breifly tell you about my furbaby (if you don't know, lots of people who can't or don't want to have kids for medical reasons usually call their pets their furbabies as they really are children to us).

I got Shaggy when he was 9 months old back in April of 2006, he is my first dog (we have had family dog's but Shaggy is my dog, even though he is treated as a family dog).  I was told that he was a Lhaso-Apso & Terrier mix which we could never figure out as he had no terrier traits.  After some looking around I did actually find out that he is most likely a Tibetan Terrier crossed with Lhaso-Apso.  Unfortunatly it didn't take us too long to realize that he was most likely abused by the oldest male in the family as he has many phobias and things that he is scared of.  My family and I have worked very hard with him and have got his phobia's down to a few manageable ones and turned him into a true family dog.  Shaggy has been my protector from day one.  He seemed to 'get me' instantly and step in to be my guard dog.  The first time I dislocated my wrist after I got him, my dad came over to wrap it up with an ace bandage and Shaggy got in the way and wouldn't let him near me, or if I was hurt he wouldn't let K get up on the couch with me.  He is also very very protective of me and keeps bigger dogs away from me and will stop any play fighting instantly as he gets so worked up wanting to protect me.  Thankfully he does not have many heatlh problems, he gets ear infections if I don't keep his ears clean, he has seasonal allergies and has dry skin.  All in all pretty healthy, except he could do to lose 5lbs (even though he hasn't gained any weight in 3 years).  This isn't Shaggy but it's a picture of what he looks like.  So on to the story:

Sunday night my mom came in to the living room and went to step over Shaggy, Shaggy for some reason moved and mom ended up stepping on his leg partially and almost tripping over him.  He let out a horrible yelp and ran away from her.  I quickly jumped up and went over to him and he just 'fell' right into me.  Now he isn't an overly cuddly dog so this was odd for him.  He let me and mom both feel his leg to see if we could feel any breaks and to try and figure out where he was hurt.  After about 10 minutes of this he had had enough and he bit my mom and drew blood.  My dad came up to look at him and we all realized he was barely putting any weight through his right leg.  As it was late we figured it would just be best to take him down to bed and let him get a good's night rest and see how he was doing the next day.  Dad carried him downstairs to my room and I rearranged some things to make it easier for him, got him some water and a few treats.  I even got down on the floor with him so he had someone near by.  Once I got to go to bed he wanted up on the bed with me and he stayed there the entire night (He never sleeps on my bed for any length of time as it's a water bed and he gets too hot).

I woke up when I felt him moving around so got up and helped him off the bed.  He took two steps and then layed back down.  I called my parents down and mom came down to see him and then called dad down.  This was when I just about wanted to throttle my dad.  Mom asked him if we should take him to the vet and he goes "Yeah, if you have a few thousand dollars to fix him"!!! So not impressed!!!  It was still to early to call the vet and mom had to get K off to school.  I was crying for a bit about what dad said and seeing my dog in so much pain and I just layed down beside him and petted him for a while.  I tried everything to get him to walk: 5 different types of dog treats, a cheese slice, a piece from a block of cheese, and nothing worked.  We wanted to get him up so we could see what was going on as he would not let anyone even attempt to pick him up.  Dad left to do some shopping (wasn't impressed about that either as Shaggy is a heavy dog that I can not pick up) and mom and I finally got him moving when she asked if he wanted to go for a walk.  He got up and we carried him up the half flight of stairs to go out into the front yard where he did his business and limped around a bit, he seemed to like the cold.  He was only 3 legging it and not putting any weight through the hurt leg so mom decided to call the vet and they told us that we could come and bring him in at any time.  So we packed him up and we were off.

Got to the vet and they managed to weight him.  He was very very nervous and even drooling and shaking.  Got into the back room and they took his temperature and the tech did the history and asked what happened.  The vet came in and because mom said that he had bit her the vet wanted a muzzle on him.  Well remember how I said we think he was abused?  He is terrified of a muzzle!  She got one on him that was too big so had to go get a smaller one.  As she was trying to put this one on he burried his head in my arm and was literally having a panic attack.  I must have been close to tears and told both of them (the vet and mom) to stop and just let him calm down for a minute and I just held him and talked to him.  She eventually got the muzzle on and examined his leg.  She said that she didn't feel any obvious fractures and that she thought it was in the paw / wrist area.  She said we could go and get xrays done as it might be a hairline fracture buat at $180 for them we decided to watch him for a few days first.  She did give us some doggy anti-inflamatories for him to take and we wer off ($120 later!  Mom paid for it and I told her I would pay her back next month but she felt guilty that she caused it so we agreed on 50-50ing it).

Got home, he took the pill instantly (apparently they are beef and chewables) and I kept him resting in my room downstairs.  They are miracle pills as he is doing so much better now (2 pills in) which is such a relief!  He is still limping but he is putting weight through it, he 'trips' occasionally when he puts weight through it but is doing really well.  The neat thing to watch is how our other dog (Tazzy - 1.5 year old 'jug'-jack russel and pug) is acting near him.  When I brought Shaggy upstairs last night it was the first time Tazzy got to see Shaggy since he got hurt.  Tazzy went right up to him and started nuzzling in his ears which Shags loves!  He was just so gentle with him, no fighting, no barking, no biting, no begging for baths etc.  He stayed near Shaggy but was very quiet and gentle with him.  He is now two days in, starting to be more playfull but it is easy to get him settled down.

So that is where I have been, I have been looking after the person who looks after me.  It nearly broke my heart that first night / next morning looking in his eyes as they were so sad. Thankfully he has a happy look in his eyes now.