Gumby Beast

Well, one of the beasties has managed to badly sprain his (ankle? hock?) and it swelled up like a grapefruit. We took him to be groomed on Saturday and we think that he slipped while on the grooming table, or while he scrambled up the ramp to get into the tub.

He's pretty arthritic nowadays (he's already on Rimadyl just to keep him up and moving) and we told them he coudln't jump and probably was going to have a hard time. We're not sure what happened -- it could even have been when he jumped into the car to go in the first place -- but we've been to the vet and they now have him on some lovely morphine-based pain killers. All we know is that it must have hurt terribly, since he was actually whining. It's so hard to tell with these big northern breeds if they are in any pain...they simply ignore it and do whatever it is you ask them to do, regardless of how much it hurts. We were worried that he'd broken something (and indeed, will have him in for xrays this weekend because the swelling is not really going down). The vet says it's a bad sprain and he'll need 4-6 weeks of rest.

He's pretty pathetic, though. And stoned.

He's groggy enough that I can prop him up and then watch while he sloooooowly tips over and sprawls on the floor. Heh. I shouldn't laugh, really. I shouldn't.