Poor Pup

We're scheduled to begin our vacation travels this evening and there's trouble in paradise.  After walking Maks around the block in our Ergo carrier, I stopped in the backyard and threw the ball for Kira.  On the 3rd throw, I noticed that she was retrieving fairly slowly and had a bit of an awkward run.  By the time she reached my side, she dropped the ball, stood on 3 feet.  At first I thought that she'd run through a pile of fire ants.  But, she wasn't trying to lick her paw.  She didn't land funny when she caught the ball, and she hadn't made a single yelp or whining noise at all.  The next thing I know, she lay down in the grass.  If you know Kira, you know that this is extremely unusual behavior for our playful, ball-loving girl.

I rushed into the house to put Maksim down and then went outside to tend to Kira.  She wouldn't even bear weight or walk at all.  So, I bent down and carried our 65lb dog into the house.  I placed her on her bed and tried to look over her leg.  She still wouldn't walk, but she didn't seem to mind when I touched her.  I tried to give her a little bit of relief by placing an ice pack on her leg - but she would have none of that!  I decided to give it a couple of hours before calling the vet.

 5 hours later she still could barely walk, so we decided to take her to the vet.  Since we were leaving to go on vacation for the next 2 weeks, we thought it'd be best to figure out if something was seriously wrong with her leg sooner rather than later.

As it turns out, she has a medical cruciate tear.  The vet prescribed an anti-inflammatory and pain killer.  I declined the pain killer since she was going to be laying in the car for an entire day and she didn't seem to need it.  I later learned that the anti-inflammatory that was prescribed was also a painkiller with multiple side effects.  We discontinued its use after 2 days (when we had the chance to get on a computer and research exactly what we were giving our dog).  I can't believe the vet tried to tell me that is was ONLY an anti-inflammatory with no pain killer!  We knew something was up when Kira's behavior was a little off.  As soon as we stopped giving her the meds, she was back to her normal self.

**Within a couple of days, she seems to be getting back to normal.  We're still careful to restrict her playtime while she heals, but everything is looking good for our little girl!**