Groggy dog

This morning, Tember was limping around the house as soon as she got out of bed. She’s been exhibiting some signs of needing a chiropractor — morning stiffness, a reluctance to jump up onto the bed or into the car — but I was hoping her symptoms were simply mirroring my own lower back problems, that they were sympathetic symptoms. Today, however, we decided to call the vet and ask about it. They told us we could bring her by this morning and perhaps take some x-rays. My immediate thought was about how it was gonna be expensive, but I also figured that since her aches have been apparent for the past two weeks or so, we should maybe go ahead and take her in.

We dropped her off at about 9:00 and returned three hours later. I suppose the news and the bill could have been worse. It turns out she’s got a minor tear in her knee (something that could develop into and ACL tear if we’re not careful), and Lyme’s disease. So I guess that huge tick we took off of her four weeks ago was a deer tick.

The vet sedated her for the x-rays and warned us that she might be a little out of it for a while. She did seem a little zoned when we got her to the car, but the full extent of her out-of-it-ness wasn’t apparent until we got home. I stayed outside with her for a bit and she seemed kinda stunned. She wasn’t very active. She just stood around, staring straight ahead. When I got out a camp chair to sit in, she came over and stood next to me. A few times, she began to fall over and caught herself just before she tipped. I told her to lay down, and she started a similar series of nodding off and catching herself. It was like she couldn’t think clearly enough to just lay her head down.

Later, once we were inside, I put her up on the couch. She leaned against the back of the couch and very slowly (over the course of about 8 seconds) fell to a lying position. She was so pathetic-slash-cute, and Eileen and I had such pity for her, that we began making up songs and singing them to her. Songs like “Groggy Puppy,” set to the tune of “Rubber Ducky.”

The whole scene was pretty sorry.