Sticks and Stones

On August 11th, which was a Monday, I was awakened at 6:30am by the wailing and moaning of a beagle with an uncomfortably full bladder. I dutifully got out of my warm bed and threw on a robe. I let the poor creature out of her crate and put her leash on as she pranced and whined next to the glass door in anticipation of the relief she was about to receive from her morning pee. Sigh. Unbeknownst to either Kioko or myself at that fateful moment, we were about to open the fogged-up glass door to behold a wet wonderland of post-rain grass covered with water droplets and soggy dirt underneath.

Kioko doesn't like wet grass.

Kioko won't step on wet grass.

Not even for a nice morning pee.

So here I am out in my backyard with morning hair and a bathrobe on for all the neighborhood to see while my beagle stood resolutely at the edge of the patio refusing to step off into the grass to do her business. Those of you who have read through this blog and are familiar with Kioko's potty training history know what this means as well as I did in that moment: Kioko was going to wait until I took her inside...and then she was going to pee on my floor.

Not being a morning person, this made me angry. The little twerp had roused me from a satisfying sleep fully an hour before I normally rise with her whining and she was GOING to do her business in the yard. I gave a swift tug on her leash and stepped into the yard myself at the same time. Kioko stood there looking at me...front paws out in front of herself...braced in stubborn hound fashion...refusinig to yield. I jerked again, harder this time. Something happened. She lurched into the yard, but the angle was weird. The 4-inch drop from the patio, the angle at which she landed, her specific torque provided by the resistance...something. The moment her right hind leg hit the ground, she began to cry in pain. The morning pee instantly forgotten, I went to see what was wrong. She continued to bleat and scream in pain, and I was terrified. I scooped Kioko up in my arms and took her inside. I tried to manipulate her little foot to see if she'd fallen on a burr...she jerked her leg away and ran into her crate still crying with alarming volume. I brought her a piddle pad and sat petting her head. She soon calmed down, but she did not put the leg down, and she was holding it at a very scary angle. Feeling like the worst dog owner who ever lived, I called the vet clinic and requested an emergency visit.

By 8:30am, my daughter and I were standing in the vet's office looking at a computer screen image of Kioko's x-ray. She had a compound fracture near the joint on her tibia and another clean break higher up on the leg. In tears, I asked what had to be done, authorized all charges, and begged them to give her a pain shot since she'd been in pain since 6:30am. They all did their best to convince me that this wasn't my "fault," but I still felt like the worst beagle abuser in the history of the world. My poor baby dog was in pain with a horribly broken leg, and--because it happened while I was angry with her--I felt entirely to blame.

My daughter and I waited while the staff gave Kioko a pain medication and put her in a crate awaiting surgery. They explained that she would need extensive surgery and an overnight observation. I nodded and we agreed to come back the next day to find out how it had all gone. Bless the vet staff at Kadena, they called after the surgery was over, and the surgeon explained all of the procedure and how it had gone to me.

The next two months were interesting around here. Kioko became a gloriously well-behaved dog for fully 3 weeks. She was kept on anti-inflammatories and pain meds for the first 6 days home, and after that she seemed happy and pain-free. She only seemed unhappy that we wouldn't allow her to run and jump and play. She began to chew on her bandages at one point, so we had to add the discomfort of a cone on top of her woes. She didn't like that cone at all, but she was only required to wear it for about a week. We noticed that she had stopped trying to lick and chew at her bandages, so we removed it from her life forever. She was appropriately grateful.

After two weeks, we had to go and have her looked at again for follow-up. She saw the same veterinary surgeon who had done the procedure on her leg, and I was grateful for such personal attention for Kioko. He wrapped the leg in a less obtrusive way and sent us home for 6 more weeks of recovery.

Finally, today, we are scheduled to go and have Kioko's pins and surgical apparatus removed. Cross your fingers for us...the little hound should be playing with reckless abandon very soon.

God bless the beagles,

Mrs. Nix