It was late Sunday evening when disaster struck…
I was half asleep on the couch, so I heard rather than saw the mid-air collision between the dog on the couch and the cat leaping up at him from the floor. There was quite the thud on my hardwood floor, punctuated by a bloodcurdling shriek.
I shot up immediately and found my little Jovi on the floor, shaking violently and holding one paw in the air. It was clear something was very wrong, but after carefully running my fingers up and down his leg without any objection, I was starting to think it was only a bad sprain. So, puppy slept cradled on my chest all night to ensure he didn’t put any weight on his leg.
Morning came and I carefully set Jovi on the ground to see what would happen. Without thinking, he took a step and screeched in pain. Off to the vet we went.
Sure enough, an x-ray revealed a break in his left leg. The clinic didn’t have the expertise to set the break, so they gave me two options – they could either send me to a specialist (ka-ching!) or they could put him in a cast and hope for the best. I chose option number three, which was to call my previous vet from the city who, I somehow remembered in my panic, had mentioned to me years ago that he specialized in orthopedics. We emailed the x-rays to him, and I was able to confirm an appointment for later that week.
Several thousand dollars later, Jovi was on the mend with a metal plate and pins in his teeny, tiny leg. I needed that vet bill like a hole in the head, but the poor little guy wasn’t even a year old yet and I couldn’t bear the thought of him not being able to run and play like all the other puppies…
Just in case you’re wondering, the cat was grounded for a month.
