Since I had Monday off, Dan and I were enjoying lunch together and let Miss Belle out to patrol the backyard, her favorite activity.
No sooner had we shut the sliding glass door we heard her give off a bloodcurdling bark. An unmistakable bark that sent shivers done my spine and me racing out the door without shoes on.
And there she was, sitting in the grass and holding her paw up at an abnormal angle. When she saw us race towards her, she stopped barking and put on her stoic brave face. So Dan hoisted her up and laid her down in the backseat of the car, and we rushed to the vet.
I called ahead to warn them we were coming in with an emergency, and her leg already swelled up to the size of a golf ball by the time we made it to the vet.
They saw us right away, and Dan carried her back to the lab area for her x-ray. And right when I stopped moving and sat down on the chair in the exam room, I lost it. I am not sure what happened. She loves to run and take leaps off the shallow stairs outside, so perhaps she jumped and landed wrong. Or she slipped. I did not know, but as my dog, my best girl, I felt absolutely pained with responsibility.
After was seemed like forever, the doctor came in with the bad news ? Miss Belle managed to dislocate the piece of bone in her foot sort of equivalent to a person?s wrist. Even I could see that on the x-rays, how the bone was shifted out of its socket. The doctor scheduled a consult with an orthopedist for the next day who would determine if she needs surgery or just R and R.
When she brought Belle back to us, hobbling along in her splint, I just about died. I am not a person?s mom, but I am that dog?s mom, and seeing my girl who loves to run totter awkwardly in her cast down the hall just about broke my heart to pieces.
We took her home, and we tried to give her positive encouragement to use that leg. Between tears, I kept trying to encourage her to use her splinted foot. And after a while she got the hang of it, using her little peg leg to move herself around instead of jumping around on her three other feet.
I told her she would not have to wear a cast forever, hopefully just about eight weeks until it heals. It will be okay. Until she can get full use of her leg, she will have to bark at her nemesis, the woodland creatures from inside. And when she can go back out to patrol the backyard, I cannot wait until I see her out there digging up my yard 