Do you have any idea how heartbreaking it is to watch a dog who is the complete opposite of sure-footed on FOUR feet try to hop around on THREE feet? Well, let me tell you it is so completely heartbreaking that I want to hid up in my room until this all blows over. But I can’t do that because the second I am away from Annie I have this full-blown anxiety of how she might need me and she’s all alone attempting to hop around!

Last night Annie’s left paw/leg wasn’t any better so we tossed around the idea of whether or not to take her to the vet in the morning, or just phone the vet in the morning and make an appointment for Friday afternoon when Shawn got off work. When we got home last night we took her outside and put her on the patio table so I could examine her paw and leg. I couldn’t find anything wrong, she doesn’t pull away when you poke, pull, prod and so it was impossible for us to figure out exactly what part hurt so much that she  was holding her entire leg close to her body. Shawn carried her out back before he came to bed and then carried her back into the house, so she didn’t have to climb down the three steps on our deck.

This morning she was limping but in good spirits. The only problem is that she gets so excited when we wake up and come down the stairs that she was falling all over the place trying to dance around in GOOD MORNING!!! excitement. So we had to firmly tell her to calm down because she would hurt herself more.

We still weren’t sure when to go to the vet. Until she fell over while eating her breakfast. Her back legs gave out (I am pretty sure she’s got arthritis in her hips because she occasionally has some trouble getting up when it’s damp and cold). My guess is that they were just tired from holding up her weight. Heh.

So we decided a trip to the vet it would be. They opened at 9AM and I phoned at 8:57 to see if we could be fit in. The wonderful tech guy who works during the week and remembers me (between Annie and Kewpie (from back in the day) I have had a lot of vet time. ;)) and he said to bring her in and the vet would try and see us between the two surgeries he had scheduled that morning. If he couldn’t see her then we could leave her there.

So off we went to make it to the vet for 10AM. And we got seen and my vet is just so fantastic. For regular check-ups he’ll sit on the floor with the dogs and cuddle them while examining them. Fantastic!

Turns out Annie’s left paw has a skin infection. Between the pads. I didn’t even notice it yesterday, but this morning her paw was hot to the touch, whereas the other 3 were cool and he said it was slightly swollen. The skin infection is likely from her already known allergies. So we walked away $166 poorer (thank god for credit!) and with a medication routine – Annie already takes 5mg of prednisone Mon-Wed-Fri for her asthma/allergies. So we’re upping that for 3 days to 10mg in the morning and night, decreasing to 10 mg a day for 1 week or so, plus antibiotics (1 with breakfast for 14 days) and some cortisone cream which also has anti-fungal properties (he’s concerned that a fungus might form. Ew.)

After Annie’s dinner (+10mg garnish) I applied the cream to her paw. IT IS SO RED! The poor thing. Even the fur around the infection is reddish (no blood though, I checked!). Now it’s noticeable, if we had waited until looking at her tonight before going to the vet I’d probably be in one hell of a panic.

Our vet hopes this will clear up with the 3-4 days of uber prednisone, and then the rest of the pillings will just prevent it from coming back. I certainly hope so as Annie is in obvious pain. Her panting has tinges of crying at times and it’s just killing me inside. I don’t know what else to do for her!

We went back to Petcetera today for Annie’s birthday. It wasn’t actually planned, only Shawn let me know that we were out of dog food so we had to go anyhow. Off we went with the dogs in the back of the car for another Saturday of fun in the pet supply store!

So we were all, “Hey, Annie! Wanna go pick out your own birthday treat?”

And Annie was all,

YUM! GRAVY!

So, we took that as a yes and piled into the car (which was a good thing since she was already on leash and that meant we weren’t just teasing her).

So, like, can I drive? Why aren’t we moving yet?

Last week’s trip, which I never wrote about, was huge excitement for Annie! She was more excited and interested in things than Jinx was – almost. She was jumping up and trying to get a squeaking tennis ball that another shopper was showing her. She tried to climb up and into the display of cat scratch-posts (she was VERY interested in those!) she loved the bunny in the cage (so did Jinx – and the chinchillas (chinchilli?) only they didn’t like Annie and Jinx very much and were trying to bite them through the bars. heh) We were going to let the dogs check out the bunnies again but there were people in the way and so we wandered through the other aisles. We also needed dog shampoo since it’s so mild this weekend the dogs were getting bathed. Yay!

A boy and his dog.

I have very good dogs. Seriously. Or, maybe not that bright. But I’m chalking it up to them being VERY polite. We went down the aisle with all the dog treats and many of these are just out in the open on low shelves, ripe for the pickin’! First – and this I will give point to “not bright” – both dogs get all excited about the PACKAGED boxes of treats on the opposite side of the aisle to the Free Range treats. But then when they notice the other side, they sniffle, waggle and look at us and go from one end to the other. No licking, no picking anything up. Jinx and Annie had like, 2 feet of pigs ears to pick at and they just sniffed them and bounded down the row. I was impressed.

Jinx got scared when he accidentally backed into some metal pooper scoopers and actually “wuff”‘d at them. HA HA HA! It was a low, irritable woof too. Like it was telling it off in a whisper. Oh, my dogs. So we got the food, the bones, the gourmet wet food and the shampoo and we headed back to the car.

It’s like being pulled by a very slow dog-sled team – going about 5 inches an hour.

When we got home, oh the joy! The dogs thought they were getting their bones. But, no! We had something MUCH more exciting planned. First we strategized… who goes first? Annie won that round, and after being carried up the stairs, Annie got her Birthday Bath (lucky dog!), followed by Jinx. He was very helpful, because when we opened the bathroom door to let Annie out he was standing RIGHT THERE and eagerly came into the bathroom to see what was going on. Oops.

Does this look like a dog who turned 4 last week? He’s still a puppy!

I’m blurry on purpose to tick you off because you BATHED me on my BIRTHDAY. And there was NO GRAVY!

But after the bath trauma (they just sit or stand there and don’t even try to get away. They are exceptionally good dogs to bathe, we are very lucky) they each got their treat. We didn’t realize how big those treats were mind you.

It didn’t go much above 7C today, but that was still mild enough that we could finally wash these dogs and keep them from stinking up the house anymore. Of course now the house smells like wet dog, but that will go away soon and the dogs will smell much better. Next time they should need a bath we will likely be able to do it outside.

Meanwhile, I have a bathroom to clean now. I am glad I didn’t actually clean it all the other night like I was wanting to do because I would have had to do it all over again.

We didn’t feed the dogs until late tonight since they’d each had such a hefty afternoon snack. They did get the special stew-like dinner. But we ate at a normal time and had our first BBQ of the year. We cheated and bought the pre-made burger patties since we were rather wiped from the afternoon fun, and they shrank down to tiny little oreo-sized burgers, but they were still good because they were done on the barbecue!! Yum!

I think Annie had a good birthday. She’s 11 now and with each year she gets more and more playful and puppy-ish. Which is strange. I think Jinx has rubbed off on her. Eleven is old for a dog, but Lappies seem to have a good track record of living to 14-17 years old. I’m hoping that Annie falls into that category because I can’t imagine not having her in my life.

IT’S MAH BIRTHDAY! GIMME BEEF!

Happy birthday, Bellygirl.