UGHHHH

You know the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you come home and one of your dogs seems to be injured or in pain? Probably the only feeling worst than that is when you come home and instead of being greeted by wags and body leans, your dog isn't there or has died. Ugh, that's a real bummer...maybe I'll talk more about that later. But for now, I should get back to the topic at hand....ah yes, coming home to someone with an owie.

When you come to my house, you're in for a welcome that is somewhere on the magnitude of a Super Bowl Victory Parade or even Mardi Gras. You see, Phoebe, Diesel and Bailee are most decidedly re-incarnated Walmart Greeters...not the ones that gruffly ask to see your reciept when you leave, but the kind that dries off your cart, cheerfully says "good morning" (or afternoon) and REALLY, REALLY means it. These greeters are relatively few and far between, judging by my Walmart experiences of late, however, like rainbow striped unicorns, they're out there. How I managed to have three of them living in my house at one time is beyond me, but let me tell you, you sure know SOMEBODY is glad you're home. Each has a distinct style of greeting, Phoebe dances, wags her tail in an up and down motion, ducks her head and tries to lean into you for a nice butt scratch. Diesel blasts out of his crate, jumps on you and darts around the house, banking of furniture (and you), all while is nubbin of a tail goes a hundred miles per hour. Bailee, is somewhat more reserved, she comes running but wiggles her entire body from side to side; making up for her lack of a tail. Homecoming is an event...every single day in my house.

So imagine my Monday, when after letting Diesel and Bailee out of their crates, I noticed Phoebe completely favoring her left front leg. She was waling on her tippy toes, literally and my heart went straight into my stomach. Did Diesel slam into her and hurt her elbow or pastern? Did she slip on the floor and twist, tear or otherwise damage herself? It's times like these when I really wish I could talk to my animals, or they could just say "Hey, DUMMY, this hurts!" Naturally, as I tried to get Phoebe examined and determine the source of her limping the bulldogs were beside themselves...in addition to being walmart greeters, they're complete and utter attention whores. Aaron had the audacity to walk in the front door and it was time for Act 2 of the homecoming ritual...we corralled the bulldogs who barked and wailed and protested their confinement and began examining Phoebe's leg in earnest.

Every Spring, when the trees and flowers start doing their thing Phoebe's feet flare up and become inflamed. I ordered special immunity complexes for her, in hopes that I could get her loaded up and ready for the wave of allergens, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Her left foot had become so inflamed that a hole had formed and puss and blood was oozing out of it; of course this was after an initial exam and a frantic call to make a vet appointment for her first thing Tuesday morning. That's when I went into first aid mode, I filled the tub with malaseb shampoo and betadine solution and had her stand in the foot soak for 4 handfuls of cookies...approximately 15 minutes. We then dried her bad foot thouroughly and applied optimmune ear ointment (also good for paw infections), I wrapped her foot in gauze and vet wrap and gave her a dose of leftover prednizone. For the record, I'm not a fan of cortizone or the use of steroids, but when there's a critical, painful inflammation at hand, I'm gonna go for the big guns. We also sat and did some Reiki for awhile and I confined Pheebs to Foley's old Condo sized, soft sided cabana crate.

The next morning we got up and Phoebe's foot mitt had dissapeared (so far without a trace, and nothings come out in Diesel's poo) and she was walking normally. We went to the vet and I told Ron what we had done and he confirmed that I was on point, but that the optimmune was maybe a wee bit of overkill. Anyway, we've got a ten day course of pred and 5 days into it she's recovered 100+%. I really wish something so yucky didn't work so darn good, but what can ya do?