Deep breath.

Coming up for air.

Dodger is back in for round two.

To recap, DH and I came home separately from meetings late last month to find the puppy in his dog run, in his shelter with two hind legs not working. He spent the first night in the emergency clinic where they suspected spinal damage. That emergency clinic is only open at night and we had to check him out and take him to our regular vet the next morning. She watched him all day and couldn't figure out what the problem was, so referred him to a special clinic back up the street from the first clinic. After two days with them two of their more observant vets concluded that it couldn't be spinal damage because "he knows where his feet are." They speculated that he had some kind of injury to his legs and ordered up x-rays. Turns out he had two broken hind legs (which - we can only conjecture here - might have happened if he tried to climb out of the chain link dog run. We'll never know since we weren't home when it happened.) He had surgery to replace the growth plates in his left tibia (with implanted pins to hold things together). The break in the right leg was not so bad and the vet felt that the confinement that would be necessary for the left to heal would be enough for the right as well.


It's now 2.5 weeks later. This now 5.5-month-old-puppy has been confined to a crate at all times unless allowed out to toilet. He's healed well and as the legs have healed and the pain has receded, he has become more and more bored with life and more and more difficult to deal with. I have a nice tee-shirt tan from sitting out in the front yard (the only place we don't worry about him slipping and re-injuring himself) a half hour at a time.

Yesterday we took him back to the clinic for follow-up surgery. As the vet checked follow-up x-rays late last week he concluded that the dog ALSO probably has a genetic condition called OCD. While his compulsive eating of dirt and rocks definitely falls into that category, in this case OCD refers to some issues with the bone/cartilage interface in his legs. They will be doing surgery this morning to remove the implants and will check through arthoscopy to see if OCD is an issue and to correct the lesions if it is. The vet said this could be caused by his injury and I'm hoping it is because if it is genetic he's in for all kinds of problems that I can't afford to take care of.

In happier news, I have been proceeding (in short spurts of time) with the renovation of my son's old room into my "nest." I'm nearly finished with the hardest part. I bought six cabinets from IKEA and they are almost finished.


As soon as the guys are up and about I'm going to connect them together (which will finish the squaring up, although they look much more aligned that they appear in this odd-angle photo). Then I can attach three doors. I have the glass-paned doors, but the other four had to be shipped from another warehouse and won't be in until later this week or early next week.

I love the paint.

It's been a difficult process, in part because my time is limited. I'm still on the criminal grand jury for another three weeks. They changed us from all day Monday and Friday to afternoons (1:30-5:00 ish) Monday and Wednesday and all day Friday. Pretty much shoots the whole week vacation-wise, doesn't it? Factor in the puppy care and I've ended up working in short spurts of time. In addition, there was no way to move everything out of the room, so now everything is pushed into one side of the room while I work on this side. As soon as the cupboards are done I will move everything over here and work on the other side. But, it's going remarkably well (I'm using my Granddaddy's tape measure so maybe he's giving me spiritual support. If so, I thank him.) I'm hopeful to have it done and have everything in place in time for me to leave for a trip to Utah.

I haven't been back to Utah since last August. We've been trying to coordinate a trip, but someone is going to have to be here with the dog. He may still be crated a lot of the time, but someone has to let him out to toilet and to feed him and talk to him. Right now we're talking about a complicated but - I think - doable process where I drive to Utah, leaving DH here. DS will be visiting his girlfriend in Indiana Aug 12-16, so I was thinking I would fly home, leaving my car in the SLC airport lot. DH would then fly to SLC on the same day, using my car to drive himself to the condo for his stay. He has suggested he wait until DS is home, then fly to SLC and staying with me for a few days. He would then take me to the airport, I would fly home and pick up his car in the flyaway lot and come home in time to start work. Should work.

We talked about taking the dog up with us, which we will eventually do. But frankly, listening to the beast whine in the crate in the car for 800 miles and then spending two weeks doing for him what I do here just doesn't sound like a vacation.