TheBanyanTree: The Queen Gives Us A Scare

[Monique Colver]

My oldest dog, Honey, is 14 or so. She's aged very gracefully, much better
than I have, and at the last vet visit was declared in fabulous health for
a dog her age. Still, knowing she's 14, we're on the lookout for any signs
that things may be going awry.

Going awry happens to all of us eventually, doesn't it?

Late last night we were hanging out on the couch, as we tend to do late at
night when we're considering going to bed but not yet up to making the long
trek up the stairs. Ash was probably laying next to me with his head in
someone's lap, or close to it, probably me, since he finds me very
comforting. We saw Honey get up from the carpet and walk towards the
kitchen, behind us. She does this sort of thing all the time. "Should I lay
here? Should I lie there?" She still has trouble with lay and lie, not
knowing which is the appropriate word. It's okay -- she's a dog and not
expected to have perfect grammar.

We heard her lay down, behind us, on the floor, which she seems to like
because it's cool, and then we heard scrambling and thrashing.

Scrambling and thrashing are not sounds we're used to, though occasionally
she slips on the hardwood floor and then tries to cover it up by acting as
if she meant to do it all along. Andrew looked over the couch and I said,
"What's going on over there?" I can't see back there because my head
doesn't do 180 degree turns. I blame my parents for not producing something
more functional when they made me.

"I don't know," he said, "But . . . "

And then he jumped up and ran to her. "There's something wrong!"

I ran to her also, as did Ash, who regards Honey with all the reverence due
a supreme being.

Her head was at an awkward angle, twisted so that her left eye appeared to
be bulging because of the angle of her neck, and she looked desperate and
unhappy and confused. We knelt by her and tried to move her head, but it
wouldn't move, and her desperation didn't seem to be dissipating, despite
the fact the three of us were standing over her like avenging angels. Of
course, it wasn't avenging angels she needed, it was help of some sort, if
only us stupid humans could figure it out.

"We need to take her to the vet," I said, and Andrew went looking for the
number to the emergency vet.

We recently used the emergency vet when Ash consumed chocolate chocolate
cake to celebrate my birthday, so we know which one to go to.

As Andrew looked up the info I stayed with Honey, and I petted her and told
her everything was going to be okay. Then I looked at her as a whole,
instead of focusing on her head and her bulging panicked eyes. "Hey," I
said to the poor thing, "Where's your other leg?" I could see one back leg
on the side she was laying on, it was right there where it was supposed to
be, on the floor, but the other one, where was it? The one leg was there,
but there should have been two legs. When last I saw her she had two back
legs, not just one.

Did I mention that this year Honey has grown a fabulously healthy thick
long coat? It's gold and soft and fabulous, and things can get lost in
there.

Like legs.

I found her other back leg at her neck. She'd broken a toenail on that
foot, and when she'd been scratching herself up at her neck, or ears, the
toe had caught in some of that luxurious fur and was stuck there. My dog
was not having a seizure, or an attack of some sort, and she wasn't
anywhere close to being terminal. She just had her toe stuck to her fur,
which was why her head was twisted to the side with the toe attached to it.

Oh sure, it's funny now.

I yelled out that she was fine, that I'd found the problem and what I
really needed was a pair of scissors, because that fur was not going to be
dislodged easily. Andrew couldn't find the scissors, and as he ran around
looking for them I tried to separate her toe from the fur that was quite
attached to it. Just as he gave up on the scissors and brought me a knife I
separated the toe, with the hair coming loose in a big clump, and Honey was
free.

She was shaking quite a bit by then, no doubt more alarmed by my panic than
by the fact that her toe was stuck to her neck, so I sat down with her in
the living room and we calmed each other down while I cut off the offending
toenail. I tried another toenail as well, but she wasn't ready to have
anything else done, so I made an appointment with her to do some more
grooming on both toes and fur today. If she cancels on me she has to pay a
cancellation fee.

She's fine, and she says the only problem is that she would like to have
servants who are a bit quicker with a diagnosis. I told her too bad, she's
stuck with us.

M