Grete's Emergency Vet Visit

We just got home from the vet about 20 minutes ago.

This is taken from my email to Jason.

The good news... It was reproducible at the vet's office.

The bad news... They don't know. We got to show off our walking skills in the hall for at least 15 minutes, and we were in the exam room for about another half hour plus. I was definitely at the office for over an hour total.

Right now, she's on Rimadyl twice a day. The vet will be in on Saturday -- so they'll call to follow up on Friday. If she's not better by then, x-rays on Saturday. If she's worse, I should call ASAP.

She refuses to put her right rear paw down about 50% of the time. It all depends on how distracted she is. If she's just trying to meander from one side of the room to the other, she'll keep it drawn up to herself really high. She's clearly in pain. If she's trying to escape a vet, she'll push off with it pretty hard (and thus hurt it more that she'll draw it up again.)

I told them that something still seemed "off" off-and-on ever since Marymoore on Saturday. I don't know if this is really related. It's impossible to know.

However, the immediate cause seems to be was simply going after a ball and tweaking something. She was on soft grass. It wasn't anything special. She ran down the hill, to the flat bit just fine, and eventually caught the ball on the ground. She didn't yelp. She just pulled up her leg and looked quite upset. We limped back into the
office, and I immediately called the vet. In the office, she continued to hold it up about 50% of the time. Thus, I felt like going to the vet was the right thing to do.

Possible "good" causes include soft tissue damage and/or tweaking her back. It could also be damage to a growth plate. That's somewhere between good and bad, I think. Not sure. Still in the "it will heal" camp, I think. I'm sure the vet was trying not to scare me.

Possible "bad" causes include all the usual suspects... We won't get into those -- xrays will involve sedating her so the vet would prefer not to do them if she gets better by Friday.

I'm supposed to keep gently feeling her from her toes, through her ankle, to her knee, to her hip, to her entire back-spine to look for pain points. She was too tense at the vet's office to really get a good read. The vet seemed to think it could have been her knee, but since she couldn't move it side-to-side out of the joint, it possibly was not that.

She's on strict bed rest for the next 4 days. No stairs. No jumping. No chasing the cat. Short walks only to eliminate. The Rimadyl is for the next two weeks. Also, no ball or other fast turn-on-a-dime behavior for 2 weeks.

She's sleeping in her kennel. I gave her a bunch of chicken-dipped toys to lick, and she seems darn tuckered out from the stress of the vet's office.

In short... Wait and see.