Walking Wounded

Last night, Maisie got hurt.  Hurt in a way that scared me more than I've been scared in a long time.  When I got home with her yesterday, Chrissy was waiting for us on the deck. While Maisie excitedly greeted him, I dropped her leash to grab my house keys.  As she occasionally does when feeling hyper, she took off to run a lap around the fenced perimeter of the house.  After just a second or two, we heard a horrible cry and Maisie came limping back towards us.  Her right thigh was torn open all the way down to the muscle. Not knowing exactly what happened but completely freaked out nonetheless, we rushed to the car as I called the vet and told them we were on our way.  I simultaneously drove and cried, Chrissy sat in back with Maisie and attempted to console her.

My vet stayed open late to take care of Maisie.  Thankfully, they were able to just use a local anesthetic (combined with morphine) and didn't need to put her under.  It took eight stitches to close the wound and with the exception of vomiting, Maisie was a trooper throughout the whole process.

I was so grateful that they allowed me to take her home immediately afterwards, even in her extremely dopey state (and wearing the E-collar she'll be sporting for the next two weeks).  Maybe they just couldn't bear listening to me cry like a baby any longer.

She couldn't make it down the stairs by herself, just kind of hung out slumped over on the steps until I finally picked her up and carried her.

Maisie woke me at 6:00 this morning, whimpering.  I figured the morphine had worn off. She's on Rimadyl and antibiotics for seven days but can't go to daycare, the dog park, playdates or the dog walker's house until the stitches come out a week from next Tuesday. So we are about to have two very trying weeks.

Once it was light out, I went around the side of the house to see what could have caused such a deep, terrible cut.  I discovered one of the plastic covers for the filters on the air conditioner unit was broken and had a sharp, skewer-like piece of plastic protruding just a bit.  I can only assume that was the culprit.

I am very fortunate that I can bring Maisie to work with me every day for the next couple weeks as she recovers.  I took the cone off for a while today to let her nap more comfortably in the office, though I watched her like a hawk the entire time.  She actually seemed to gain energy towards the end of the day and jumped up on the bed all by herself when we arrived home.

The area in question looks slightly better today, mostly because I cleaned off the dried blood with a little water.

All in all, it was not an experience I ever wish to repeat.  I cried for about three hours straight, convinced it was my fault for letting go of the leash (something I do all the time without incident).  Did I mention that yesterday was my birthday?  :(