The squirrel made it to the maple. Hank didn't make it past the garden beds. It was a little after three on Sunday, the light already going orange over the garage, and he shot off the back step the way he has a thousand times, hit the patch of ice where the downspout drains across the yard, and his back end went sideways. I heard the yelp from the kitchen sink. It was a sound I'd never heard from him, high and short, and by the time I got my boots on he was standing by the chain-link with his left back foot barely touching the snow.
He wasn't crying anymore. He was doing that thing dogs do where they act fine from the shoulders up: tail going, ears soft, nose working on whatever the squirrel left behind. But every time he put weight on that leg, he took it right back off, like the snow was hot.
Sunday night
Caleb carried him up the back step, all 68 pounds, which neither of them enjoyed. We put him on his bed in the living room and I did the few things I know how to do. I checked between his toes for ice balls or a cut, ran my hands down the leg for heat or swelling, and watched him walk across the kitchen once. Nothing at the paw. The problem was higher up. He would stand and set just his toes down, which in clinic language is "toe-touching lame" and in house language is "oh no."
I've passed along our own vets' phone instructions for this kind of Sunday enough times to know them by heart: if he's eating, alert and comfortable lying down, keep him quiet, call first thing in the morning, and head to the emergency hospital if anything changes. Knowing it and doing it are two different things. I slept on the sofa. Hank slept fine. Mabel sat on the radiator shelf and watched us both like we'd lost our minds.
Monday at my own clinic
Monday is one of my days off, which meant I got to be the client. It's strange walking in through the front door instead of the staff entrance. I checked us in like anybody else and sat in the lobby with Hank leaning his whole body against my shins.
Our vet watched him walk, then felt both knees. He was too tense to let her really move the left one, which she said is common, so she recommended sedation for a proper exam and X-rays. Under sedation the knee moved in a way she didn't like, and the films showed swelling inside the joint and no fractures. Her words were "this looks like a cranial cruciate ligament tear," the dog version of a torn ACL, and she said "looks like" on purpose. A surgeon would confirm it and talk through options.
The bill was $411.43 at list price. With my 30 percent staff discount we paid $288.00, out of the pet fund, which had $1,669 in it on December 1. That discount only works at my own clinic, so I already know it won't follow us to a surgeon.
She sent Hank home with pain medication, strict rest and a referral to a surgical practice in Blaine. Their first open consult was Friday, January 2. I took it before the receptionist finished saying the date.
The insurance part, briefly
Hank's policy renewed on December 1, so a fresh $500 deductible year started four weeks before he found the ice. The $288 counts toward it, and the consult will too. I'm not complaining about the timing. Early in the policy year beats late November, when a long recovery could have straddled two deductibles on our plan. I'll write up the claim once there's a claim to show.
The waiting
Here's what I've learned in a day and a half: a dog on rest doesn't know he's on rest. Hank is sore, but he's also a five-year-old golden mutt (almost six, his chin just starting to go gray) who treats the back door as a starting gate. We've closed off the stairs with the baby gate, he goes out on a leash for every potty trip, even into our own fenced yard, and Caleb spread sand over the downspout ice before he left on a plow call this morning. Barn door, horse, I know.
I've also been reading too much at night. I know just enough from work to be dangerous. Our vet mentioned, gently, that dogs who tear one knee often have trouble with the other one eventually. I know surgery estimates for knees aren't small, and I've watched people's faces when those numbers come across the counter. On Friday it'll be my turn on the other side.
If your own dog comes in from the yard holding up a leg, a call to your vet will do you more good than what I did, which was look up words at midnight.
Right now Hank is asleep with his chin on the edge of the sofa cushion and his bad leg stretched out behind him. He groaned when I got up to make tea, which is his way of saying he'd come along if anyone would let him. Nobody is letting him. Friday can't come fast enough.
