Rascal's Torn ACL

So what happened to Rascal (pictured above in mid yawn, fully stretched out)? A few months ago he came up lame. We figured it was the rough, steep, terrain at the cabin. Other dogs play with him there and he probably got a little carried away as dogs will do. We took him to the vet, and she gave him some nonox. It seemed to help and he started to get better. Remember the "pet" foxes I have been talking about? Well Dan let Rascal out not knowing that our friendly fox (great photo here) was nearby and Rascal gave chase. But he didn't even get off the deck. We heard a yelp and knew what had happened. He went to push off from that injured leg and hurt himself badly. But the pain seemed to go away and we put him on aspirin and "bed rest". We went back to the vet when there was no noticeable improvement and had x-rays taken ($$$). He has a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). The solution is a very expensive surgery with a veterinary orthopdic surgeon ($2,500) or $1,000 with a general vet and a higher chance of failure. But the worse part is the recovery. Week upon endless week of Rascal being locked in his crate with noone home as i start a full time next week (more on that later)! After talking to our vet at length who owns a resuce pup that had failed ACL surgery and is doing fine, we decided to keep things as they are. Rascal is in no noticeable discomfort. He is still chasing the cats and is his old self except for the fact that he runs on three legs and seems to have adapted fine. He walks on all fours. The vet said to put him on a special veterinary joint dog food which of course is very expensive but is AMAZING. If any of you have arthritic dogs, this stuff is like gold. The vet said her dog was walking on three legs and when she started to feed this, the improvement was almost immediate. We found the same thing. I would tell you the name of it but we threw the bag away. However I will share it with you when we get the next bag. Needless to say it's about $30 a bag. So there you have it.

To completely change the subject, don't forget to get out and VOTE!