Dog Guilt

About three days after we got home from our trip Shelby started limping. Jeff and I have various theories on the cause of this, none of which are the same as the other's. We've been alternating between leashing her in the back yard and letting her roam free like she usually does. I took her to the vet Monday morning and after a few hours of debate on what we should do I brought her home with instructions to tie her up so she wasn't chasing squirrels, birds, air, etc.

On Friday she seemed to be doing much better, only limping occasionally if she'd been lying down for a while (even I do that). So when I let her out to do her business I let her do her own thing. She immediately caught sight of a squirrel and went racing at it. I swear she can run 40km a hour. And skidded to a stop across the back (because there's a fence).

This is where the guilt comes in. She could barely walk today. And when she goes to get up from the lying down position she winces and whines in pain. She doesn't put any pressure on her front paw and when she sits she keeps it raised and close to her body. Of course, Jeff is devastated by this. He took her to the vet and they x-rayed her shoulder and elbow this morning. The vet didn't seem to think there was any arthritis but was going to send the results to a technologist to read. To do the x-rays they had to sedate her. From what Jeff says they also had to manipulate her injured leg quite a bit. So she was in even more pain when she came home. Because of the drugs she was also quite pathetic looking. She couldn't keep her legs from sliding out from under her. Jeff was carrying her everywhere (I'm sure his back will be sore tomorrow).

Had I kept her on the leash like I was suppose to she wouldn't have re-injured herself so badly. Bad mommy! Can you imagine if I had kids. "Sure, Johnny, go play in the traffic." UGh!!