Yuki and Zyrtec haven’t been getting along. I had planned to call the vet because I hadn’t noticed any changes on the medication, and she was having accidents almost every day. The day I decided, “ok, if it happens again, I’m calling the vet”, Bacio has a freak accident. To this day, I nor the vet really know what happened. We went out in the morning as usual. He did his business and ran up the stairs. He didn’t eat his breakfast, but sometimes he doesn’t, so I didn’t think anything of it. After getting some work done, it was time to take the dogs out for their longer walk. Yuki got up all excited to go out, I put her leash on, and called Bacio to come over.
He didn’t come.
Whatever, he’s weird sometimes. I went over to him and clipped his leash to his collar. That usually makes him pop up, do his excited wiggles, and be ready to go.
He just laid there….
I tried to coax him up, but as he tried to lift himself with his front legs, he started trembling. Bacio could barely get himself up. Did he slip earlier going up and down the stairs? It happens sometimes, he always goes way to fast. I carried all 65lbs of him down the stairs to see if he would start feeling better once he got in the fresh air. By the time I was at the bottom of the stairs with him, I could barely walk anymore… (This dog mama needs to not only update her blog more often, but also hit the gym more frequently).
We got to the sidewalk, he started slowly walking. He only made it two houses down before he walked into the parkway, sat, and then laid down. Bacio wouldn’t get up.
Queue the internal panic. Externally I was trying to stay as calm as possible for my beardog. I immediately called the vet. Of course it was 12:02pm. The vet closes for lunch at 12. As soon as I could, I called them, and they got me in ASAP.
Dr. Andy did a full blood panel and X-rays of his shoulders. He could see that Bacio was in very visible pain. The X-rays showed some minor arthritis, but nothing to make him react in the way he did. I opted to have the films sent to a specialist for further review. Maybe it was a tear or a pulled muscle?
He was also running a fever, but I was told that could have been because of all the pain he was in. He got a shot of Rimadyl and was prescribed lots of bed rest.
On the brief drive home, he appeared to be getting worse. He actually yelped in pain, something he very rarely does. The only other time I remember him yelping like that was when he fell on the stairs after his surgery. Queue panic numero dos.
By now the vet is closed. My options are to wait it out with him or take him to an ER. My friends came over to keep me company keep me sane. For the first time in the whole day Bacio finally drank a little water. He also was able to fall asleep. I set up a bunch of blankets and had a slumber party with him on my living room floor, prepared to take him to the ER if he woke up in anymore pain.
I woke up the next morning and immediately called the vet to tell them about the yelping, and also that I noticed that Bacio wasn’t turning his head to the left. He physically was unable to do so. By the time the vet called me back, Bacio was able to sit up without shaking in pain. He said the only other option we had was to put him under anesthesia and do an MRI. Since he was sitting up and drinking water, he recommended seeing how the next day or two went and to keep him on the Rimadyl pills he prescribed. The good news was that he did not believe it was his spine, because he’d seen that in his own dog, and Bacio would have been in constant pain, with no improvement.
Towards the evening of that day Bacio was standing on his own when he felt like it and ate all his food. His blood work came back along with the specialists review of the x-rays. The X-rays showed no visible damage to bones or muscles, as far as tears went, but it did show muscle deterioration which is a bit concerning. His blood work showed low thyroid levels.
Bacio is now on a thyroid medication, and in another month we will test his blood again to see if his levels are improving. As far as the freak accident, we just assume it was a pinched nerve, and the anti inflammatory meds helped it heal. We’ll never really know I guess? It was scary nonetheless and I hope it never happens again!
