Monday, February 6, 2012

Max

So the second vet thinks it's Max's back that's creating the problem, not his foot.  A pinched nerve, slipped disk or maybe just arthritis.  He has to loose weight, take glucosomine and we have to restrict his exercise to 3 or 4 ten minute walks per day and no off leash running.  No stairs - he comes down in the morning and goes up with us to bed at night.  Obviously, he gets no treats or leftovers either.  We go back in a month to see how he is.  She didn't take X-rays because he seemed fine when we were there.  She said since there was no limp or favouring of the leg at the time, the X-ray would most likely not show anything.  As you can probably guess, he's not happy about the whole situation.  He sits at the bottom of the stairs and whines during the day, he wanders around upstairs at night.  I think he was actually on a hunger strike because he didn't eat at all for a day and a half, and now he's just nibbling his food as if he is grudgingly eating just because he has to to survive.  On our walks, he gazes longingly at the paths where he normally runs off leash as we go by and when I turn to come up the driveway, he looks at me as if to say "What, we just got out here, why are we going home already?"  The worst part of the whole thing is that I feel bad for putting so many restrictions on the poor guy, but if I don't follow doctor's orders I'll feel bad for not letting his back heal.  I seriously don't want to watch him hopping or limping around.  The vet was telling us that because he is a large breed he is considered a senior at five years old, which is August for our guy. 

1 comment:

  1. Wow, no wonder my vet was impressed with the 15 years our Maggie lived... I didn't know that 5 years was a senior dog for a bigger dog... does 75 lbs count as a big dog?

    Poor Max. You can't explain to him that he needs to take it easy, eat right and behave himself so he can get to feeling better. Hope it works!!!

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