Sammie has been gone for 18 days. This is the first night I haven’t gone looking for her. Bruno and I went bushwhacking last night, and once again didn’t find her. Instead, we almost got pounced by a flying baby moose. We were standing in a forest of white birch trees. The ground was covered in delicate green fern. We were making noise because each step we took was over downed trees. Out of no where, we heard a noise and turned around, there was a baby moose galloping down the gently sloped terrain. Bruno started to go crazy and shoved him down to the ground and tried to cover him– to protect him when momma moose came round. Momma never came round– which is a good thing. Bruno almost tugged my arm off trying to follow baby. I don’t know what the moose was running from, but she was running fast and looked scared. If Bruno had been off leash, I’m sure we would have had another dog vs. moose incident.
Other news at Stinkypup is Decker’s radial subluxation. On Monday June 21st, Decker got beat up during a puppy party. Greg wasn’t around, so it was just me who pulled one dog off & hooked them up, pulled another dog off & hooked them up, and so on. I’m not sure who started the fight, but many snouts were involved, including Monkey, Pumpkin, Capella, Spike, Chester, Rocket, Ahab, Zeus, Nikki and Roo. All ten dogs were pulling and jumping and tugging on poor little Decker. Dog fights suck.
After I got everyone back on their chains I fed them, and then tended to Decker’s wounds. She had a couple of puncture wounds, which I shaved and cleaned. When Greg came home he helped me tend to the rest of her wounds. She had a long laceration on her back leg and bleeding puncture wound near her left armpit. We cleaned her up, gave her Rimadyl, Tramodol & Cephlex and put her in the pen. We’ve seen a lot worse, but were keeping an eye on her. She didn’t eat much on Tues. Wed. she ate a little and her wrist began to swell. We put ice on her wrist, which helped the swelling a lot. On Thurs. her entire arm began to swell. We iced it and the swelling went down, but she wasn’t getting better.
On Fri. we brought her to the emergency vet, who thought she just had a bad infection. She gave us Clavamox (a stronger antibiotic). Although the swelling went down, we now noticed she wasn’t bearing any weight on her leg and her wrist was floppy. She was breathing hard (a sign of pain in dogs), but I thought she was just too hot.
On Tues. we brought her to Dr. Flemme at Mt. McKinley animal hospital. Flemme is an expert in canine orthopaedics. He diagnosed her with lateral radial subluxation. He took e-xrays to confirm the problem. We left her at the vet and he was able to manually reduce the injury (meaning put the bones back where they were supposed to be without having to do surgery).
She needs to stay in a crate for 10 days and she’s quite uncomfortable. After that we’ll move her outside to the pen. I already told her she can move inside, but I think she prefers living outside with her sisters. She’s a shy girl.
So, that’s the current news from the StinkyPup ranch. Magic is adjusting to his cropped tail (I still need to take some pics), and of course, we all desperately miss Sam.