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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Doggy Drama

Back in January I introduced you to our new puppy Phoebe.

I also admitted that I'm really not a dog person, but I wanted the boys to have a pet so we brought home a cute little puppy for them. Since then Phoebe has been a great pup for the boys. Other than chewing up a few things here and there and barking at the wind at 10 o'clock at night, she really has been the perfect little puppy.
But since yesterday, Phoebe the puppy has been stressing me out! Something happened to her Sunday afternoon. We still aren't quite sure what. Possibly she got hit by a car, or maybe she got kicked by our neighbors' horse, or maybe a bigger dog attacked her. We're not sure how, but Phoebe got hurt and not just a little hurt apparently.
Jason took her to the vet in our little community first thing Monday morning. They did an exam and an x-ray of her back legs, which seemed to be the major problem. They didn't find anything serious and said that maybe she has sprained something. They let Jason bring her home with instructions to keep her in the house and confined for about two weeks to give her sprain a chance to heal. So after paying $300 in fees, he brought her home, gave her some food and water, and put her in her little doggy cage.
When I got home from school with the boys, I noticed that she seemed worse than she had that morning. I think Jason thought she was just tried or hurting, but I knew something wasn't right. She ate a little bit, went out to do her business, and then laid down. I brought her back in so I didn't have to worry about her running around and hurting herself more, but after a while I noticed she wasn't breathing right. We let her out thinking maybe some of the medicines had given her an upset stomach. She walked around for a while, and looked like maybe she was trying to vomit. Then she laid down in the edge of the flower bed and didn't really move...she was just really laboring to breath.
So at 7:45 last night Jason took her over to an emergency clinic about 20 minutes away. They examined her ans said she was obviously in pain and that she was really dehydrated. They ended up putting in an iv and then keeping her to run a bunch of tests. Jason was told they would call back within the hour with the results and let us know what they found.
We stayed up for a while waiting on a call back, and when we hadn't heard anything around 10:00 we called over to check on her. The doctor called us back about 30 minutes later and said that from the x-ray they did it looked like she had probably been hit by a car. Her diaphragm had a tear in it and it looked like she was bleeding internally. The tear and the bleeding was making it hard for her to breath which is why she was in so much pain. The doctor said they really needed to go ahead and do surgery to repair the tear right then, because she was just getting worse and worse.
Without know just how much doggy surgery was going to cost, we told her to go ahead with it. As much as I'm not a dog person, I really couldn't bare the thought of her hurting like that, and I knew the boys would be so heartbroken if she didn't come home. They did the surgery, and called about a little while later to say that things had gone pretty well. We went to bed last night hoping and praying that she would be fine through the night.
We are up and going this morning. The boys have asked where Phoebe is and all I've told them is that she is at the doctor still. I don't want to tell them about all the details until we get an update on her. I'm hoping that we get a call with an update soon this morning. I've never been through this kind of thing with a dog, and I'm really not sure what to expect over the next few weeks. How does a dog recover from surgery? Especially an outside dog that is used to running around wild!
Anyway, for now I am stressed and we are waiting.
Hopefully, we'll have good new soon. In the meantime, I'm wondering just how much emergency surgery on a dog costs!
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17 comments:

Kmama said...

Oh no! Poor Phoebe. And poor you! I totally understand the stress a sick/hurt dog can put on a family. Hang in there. I hope you get good news.

Kelli said...

Poor Phoebe!!! I'm so sorry to hear about that. Hopefully she feels better now that she's had the surgery and will be on the mend.

Carrie said...

Oh that's terrible! Poor little phoebe! I can't believe that if she was hit by a car that nobody stopped :-( We've never had to worry about anything serious like that. I hope all goes smoothly from here on, and she heals quickly. {hope it's not too hard on the bank account either!} Best wishes for all of you!

Amanda @ Serenity Now said...

Oh, no! So sorry to hear this. :( You may want to ask the vet about keeping her in a large kennel inside when she gets home to keep her confined and from running around too much. Have you all thought about an invisible fence? When she's healed, she'd be able to run around outdoors, but she wouldn't be able to get out to the road where it's dangerous.

Yanet @ 3 Sun Kissed Boys said...

Oh, Kelli! Poor baby! I'm praying she recovers quickly.

Madeline said...

Poor Phoebe! That's awful!! Hopefully she is better soon!

Unknown said...

Oh my! Poor Phoebe! I hope she recovers quickly.

Haley said...

Oh no! Poor Pheobe! I am so sorry. She should be feeling better soon. She needs a little rest and TLC!

Michelle said...

Poor Pup! I hope you get good news soon. Our cocker was hit by a car and had some pretty serious surgery over 2 years ago and she is as good as new now.

Unknown said...

Prayers and best wishes for Phoebe and you guys. I second the motion on the invisible fencing, or some type of fencing if possible, to protect her. I know how heart breaking it is to have one of your furbabies be sick, injured, or worse.

Darcie said...

Ugh....thats hard. You love your pets and want to do as much as you can for them. The poor thing! The hardest thing for me with vets and animals is you don't know up front what they cost. We took our dog to a vet one time spent close to $300 too, and they missed the real reason. Did they refund...NO, and then they charges us more to figure out what THEY missed. We ended up not going back to that vet. I wonder how your first vet missed that she had been hit...seems to me they should have caught that. Hoping little Miss Phoebe is feeling better.

Kate said...

That's aweful! :( I hope she is okay. Our dog had to have his front leg amputated after breaking a bone and it cut off the blood cirrculation last April after months of mis diagnosis and expensive tests and the surgery alone was $1500. Maybe you should make her an inside dog! Good luck.

Unknown said...

Oh no! That's awful!!! :( We went through something similar with our dog. She fell out of my husband's truck in December and broke her femur. 1 internal bone rod, 6 external pins, and 1 hip graft later... she is fine! It took months and months for her to get back to herself though. I know its not totally the same but it was emergency surgery. With everything (including follow up visits) it was under $2000. Actually with everything that they did it was less than we had expected to pay. Surely, yours wont be that much.

Foursons said...

Oh no! I hope that sweet puppy is going to be okay.

staci @ lizard n ladybug said...

Oh No!!!
I'm sending get well wishes to Pheobe!

Anonymous said...

Oh no! We have a farm and although we've never really had many dog issues with it comes to surgey, we have had some with horses. It's so sad when they are in pain, and it's so hard on us to know what to do...and expensive! Hope she feels better soon:)

Lexie Loo, Lily, Liam & Dylan Too said...

Oh no, your poor puppy! I sure hope she's okay!

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