Puppy caught a truck

[KatCo]

Well, as Murphy Laws will have it, on Sunday Evening, my younger sons puppy Meg (she's 6 months old) snuck out through a hole in our fence and proceeded to "catch" herself a truck.

Needless to say Sunday evening was spent at the Animal Emergency Room. She broke both sides of her pelvic bone, and is scheduled for surgery this Thrusday. They will be plating her bones together.

Until then, we are keeping her "doped" up and in her crate. Potty time is tramautic on her as well as me. We have to put a towel under her tummy area and follow her front feet around. It makes it harder also because she is a girl and "squats" to do her business, I feel so sorry for her! :(

We are also up against some possible nerve damage on her right back leg, we will know more once the operation is underway.

We fortunately live in a rather "rural" area still, where the vets are still good ol' country vets, and don't want to send us to the poor house in order to get our puppy up and around once again, especially since the vet is telling me that he will be in surgery with her for most all of Thursday afternoon. Poor Baby, I just feel so awful {bawling}Needless to say, top priority is mending the fence!

Why doesn't this get any easier on us as we get older? With all the broken bones, injuries of kidhood, aminal ownership, etc. that we indure and survive, you'd think I'd be handling this better and an old pro at it!

[kezzer]

Oh, Poor puppy! It must be a girl puppy thing cuz when we got our dog she did the same thing. I hope she's ok.

[KatCo]

Thanks for the sympathy Kezzer...

Did your "girl" end up being OK? I sure hope so! I will post again when I know more about her condition...

Thanks Again:)

[kezzer]

She was fine. She , of course had to do it on Christmas Eve. Boy, were we upset. But they let us come pick her up on Christmas Day. So it really was a relief. She only bruised up her jaw a bit. She couldn't have any of the chew toys we bought her for a few weeks.

[DkTahg]

Our little "Megster" is doing much better. We got her home today. The vet was in surgery with her for over 5 hours, and it looks like there might be a little bit of nerve damage, but nothing that will slow her down much. Matter of fact our biggest challenge right now is "trying" to keep her quiet. She is acting so much better, and obviously feeling better as some of her puppiness is coming back and she thinks that she is capable of doing more than what the vet is telling her she "should" be doing.

It appears that this crisis is indeed coming to an end. She goes in for a check in a week, and for the removal of her sutures. At this point the vet is just going to leave her plates in her body until such a time that they give her trouble, and that probably won't happen, so all is much better around here. :)

[kezzer]

That's great news! :) I'm happy to hear she's doing well!

[blinc]

Oh gosh Katco, this is the first time I've seen this thread! How awful for the poor puppy! I'm glad the vet didn't send you to the poor house, but I'm feeling awful bad for the puppy to have been in that kind of pain for four days! Why wouldn't he do emergency surgery on her?

I'm SO glad to hear she's getting back to being herself again. That amount of pain must have been so hard on her, and you and your family for having to see her like that. Is she still getting around ok? Are you still using the towel to keep the weight off her hind quarters? Or is she ok to walk now? How is she doing overall? Back to puppiness yet? I'm very happy for you that she made it through this crisis! :)

[KatCo]

Hi Blinc,
Thanks for all of your concern. The reason we had to wait the 4 days was to find a veterinarian that had the expertise to place the "plates" on the pelvic bones. It takes a special device, and there are only so many vets around (at least out here in ruralville) that can do it.
She is doing great! Right after the surgery she was basically bearing weight on both of her legs again, and she needed assistance with the towel for only that day. Everyday thereafter she has made tremendous strides and is pretty much totally back to being the puppy we had before the accident (minus her jumping up on us, which we don't mind in the least{toothy})
We will take her back in next week sometime for her "final" checkup, but we are expecting an all clear, and life back to normal - if there is such a thing in this house{toothy} he he he....

[blinc]

Ohhhh! {idea} I thought your regular vet was the one who placed the plates... that's why I was wondering why on earth he would wait four days to do the surgery. I still feel bad for the puppy and you guys for her having to be, and you having to watch her be in pain, for those days. Poor baby.

I'm so happy to hear she's made such a remarkable recovery! It sounds like she's made beautiful progress in the healing process. Wow, I bet you all were so relieved the day after surgery when she was getting back to being herself so quickly! What's her name by the way? She sounds like she has a wonderful personality. :)

[KatCo]

Hi again Blinc,

Our puppies name is "Meg", my younger son thought she was the color of Nutmeg, so we started calling her that, and it naturally got shortened to just "Meg".

She has a great personality for what she has been through! She just wags her whole "rear" end when meeting anyone, and it amazes me that she still greets the vet this way.

She was a "throw" away dog. My son works at the only grocery store in the area, so everyone knows him. A customer asked him if he would like to have her as she "launched" herself into his lap while he was on break outside at the picnic table. Of course, my son called me begging to let him keep her. My son had just recently lost his 14 year old collie/australlian shepherd mix and "Meg" reminded him or her, so what could I say?

According to this fellow, Meg is supposedly a Border Collie/Rottweiler mix.|:O So who knows what she will end up looking like! At this point she is a bit longer and blockier than a Border Collie with the colorings of a Rottweiler. Her front feet are HUGE and her back feet are tiny...she is definately a mix! But she does have a wonderful loving personality, and the vet fell in love with her. Matter of fact, he was concerned that because she was just a mix/throw-away that if he didn't do the surgery cheaply enough that we would elect to just put her down, and he didn't want to see that....

Not that the surgery was that cheap, but when I had called around to get quotes from the city vets, this rural vet did if for less than half of what the city ones had quoted me. Thank goodness for vets that aren't just into making money huh?;)

[blinc]

Wow! That's a great story of how you guys got Meg into your life! I know exactly what you mean about her getting her whole rear end into the wagging. That is just so adorable isn't it? Awww... she sounds like a real sweetie pie! One of those dogs that just loves everybody - what a treasure you've got there. :)

A good vet - one who isn't in it just for the money is a blessing, aren't they? We were lucky enough to have found a really good vet who lived about 40 miles away and worked in a vet hospital, we really liked her. Then of all things, she moved closer to our area and opened her own private practice. We were thrilled! She knows that we take in animals, either to get healthy and place, or keep here. She's always giving us unbelievably low prices on her services. Over half the time she doesn't even charge for the office visit itself. Sometimes, if we've had several emergencies in a row - she only charges us for her cost of the supplies. That's it! Plus, she lives right next door to her office and if we have an emergency at 2:00 am, we'll call her and she's always in the office set up and waiting for whatever emergency we're bringing in. She's a true gem! Love her to pieces! :)

[KatCo]

You found a great vet! That is so wonderful for you, your animals and your way-ward pets that are fortunate enough to find their way onto your doorstep.

I read about your living in a rural area where people dump their pets out. That just infuriates me so much! {flame} We too get that all the time, we live off of a main highway and these people drive out to the "country" to get rid of their pets instead of doing the responsible thing.

My husband literally say a man pull over to the side of the highway, chuck a ball and two beautiful dogs go bounding out of the car to fetch the ball. Meanwhile this JERK drove off!!!

My husband followed him, he stopped at our only little grocery store we have in the area, and from what I heard from our neighbors, my husband darn near throttled the dude. He made him go back and call the dogs and told the jerk that he had his liscense plates and car model and wouldn't hesitate to turn him over for animal cruelty. Can you believe the audacity of some people?

So, I can totally relate to you and your "rescues" I only wish that the world could be filled with more people like yourself, that give of themselves, their time, effort and monetary means to make the world a little better of a place for our 4 legged friends.

Thank goodness for the veterinarians that understand that we aren't made of gold ourselves, and are trying our best to do right by these animals and extend to us their help and generosity by lowering their fees so that we can continue.

[blinc]

{grblob} Ooooh! {toothy} Good for your hubby!! Alright! I think that was just a wonderful thing for him to do! Wish I could catch some of those idiots who do that and boy, do I wish I could have been there to see him give it to that guy! If only I could shake his hand for doing that.

Oh, that just ticks me off to think that man did that! How very, very cruel. You know, I think there's a special place that has lots of fire, ;) for people who do that. I sure hope there is some punishment in store for them, for being so blasted callous and mean!

For Bill & I, it isn't an effort at all to help animals. Sometimes it does mean we have to tighten down on spending a bit, but it's well worth it to us. We both love animals so much and the reward of nursing a sick critter back to health... it's just such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment! Especially when you find someone who opens their heart and home, to give them a loving home for the rest of their lives. Makes you feel so warm inside. It's heartbreaking when you lose one because they are too ill or weak to recover, but even with all the heartaches, it's still a true pleasure to help. Like you said - without a great vet, we wouldn't be able to help as many strays as we do. Hats off to you Doc Johnson! :)