esrosedotblog

I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP

We were getting ready to go to the spa last night; the final family activity of the day.

Franklin got up to be the usual first in line—and sort of slumped back down into a pile.

I noticed, but put it down to his occasional lazy approach to bed-time. Like a little kid, he fights the last few steps toward the night.

Then, he got up, and went down again!

I checked him out and he got up again; this time all the way, with his left leg hanging in mid-air.

Now, he does get the occasional strain or pain. We let him take it easy and give him some aspirin and it passes.

But this came out of the blue. The last activity, after all, was his post dinner nap.

Some more rubbing. Some more trying to walk. I remembered that this had happened before.

His foot was 'asleep'. Pins and needles.

But it went on and on. He wouldn't walk it, so it didn't get any better.

We began to revise our prognosis. Maybe he did pull a bad strain. Maybe he had dislocated a shoulder.

Out at the spa which he made with some three legged effort, he slumped again. We continued to revise our prognosis upwards. Maybe had polio or MS or something like that. A stroke?

But night noises intervened. The call of the wild came calling. The primal urge and my reminder that he had to pee pee before we went to bed got him perked up.

He got up once and made ten feet. Then again and all the way back to the yard and lifted a leg; another leg, not the one he had been favoring. You can't pee while on just two legs!

Then a run to the opposite corner to remind his 'enemy', the Rottweiler up the hill, that he was still down here and ready to kick ass.

By the time we went in, he was OK; but did go right to bed.

When I got him up this morning, I cringed a bit, hoping it was all over. And it was. He was up and gone and out and running.

This flopping and waiting, a kind of conservatism, is something new. His former puppy self would take over and run through an injury without much concern.

Now, he is a mature dog. He can wait and test and be careful. A good thing.

After all, he will be three years old December 14th. At 7 years per dog, that is hitting the majority. Twenty one. He is, finally, a big dog.

Big dogs are more prudent. When things don't work they take it easy. You could see him doing it. We just didn't interpret the flops that way. He was trying it out slowly. Too slowly to get the blood going back into it, actually. That is what made it take so long.

Anyway, here we are, as John said when he got up to see if 'we' were all OK; "another crisis averted".