oh, annie
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!