The Brad Hole

Sunday morning, I let the dogs out (WOO! WOO! Woo-WOO!) in the backyard to play. After a while we heard Kermit yelping continuously. He and Barney came running into the house, although Kermit was still yelping the entire way. We were able to separate them and get him calmed down somewhat, and discovered that he was limping and trying not to put pressure on his left front paw. He was clearly in a great deal of pain, so we decided after a short bit that we needed to take him to a vet ASAP.

Let me just interject here and say that Sunday is a bad time for a dog to get sick or injured. Tell all your dogs to confine their illnesses to the weekdays. ;-)

We went to the nearest emergency animal hospital, which was at 99th Ave. and Peoria - a bit of a haul, but not across town, luckily. They did some triage and determined that Kermit's needs weren't urgent, and told us that we'd have about a 2 hour wait. They then presented us with a list of vets that were open "after hours" and suggested we try one of those for faster service. The list was a bit outdated (it listed our regular vet as being open on Sunday, and it's not), but we finally found one that didn't have a huge wait.

We took Kermit in and the vet there discovered that his paw was "crunching" and took some x-rays. There was no obvious sign of a break, so the thinking is that it's a sprained or torn ligament. She put a splint on his paw, and our Kermit had transformed into the Pegleg Puppy. It was pretty sad and shocking to see the first time. Kermit naturally looks a bit pitiful, and the split only makes it more pronounced. What's worse is that he's still in a bit of pain, as he has a tendency to yelp (or bark at full volume) when he tries to put pressure on that paw. Poor little bugger.

We're taking him to our regular vet tomorrow to have him checked out again. I'm somewhat concerned that the x-rays didn't show any damage, and we want to make sure that the injury isn't located somewhere higher up on his arm or shoulder. Plus our vet is super-nice and pretty thorough.

It's been a trying experience so far. We have to keep the puppies separated so that their exuberance doesn't exacerbate Kermit's injury further. That has resulted in some separation anxiety. Kermit has also had a case of the runs - what timing! This means that he needs to get up several times in the middle of the night, and the resulting walk to the yard and back invariably results in a full-volume yelp or 6 in the middle of the night. What's more, when he's "doing his business", he positions the pegleg right in between his two hind legs - great for balance, not so good for avoiding toxic sludge.

He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's our Kermit. :-)