Had To Take Hiker To The Pet Hospital

We got up around 7 am this morning, had some breakfast, did some laundry and paid a bill.

I took Hiker to the new pet hospital this afternoon and we were there for about an hour and a half.

To explain why I took her, I need to tell you some history.

Three years ago, she had somehow injured herself and for a couple of days, she would cry every time she tried to jump up onto the sofa or bed. I would help her onto the bed at night and all night she would cry and moan every time she moved. I took her to a 24-hour pet hospital where they checked her out and took some x-rays and determined she had a pulled muscle in her right hip. They gave her an injection of muscle relaxant and gave me some anti-inflammatory meds to give to her. Within 2 days, she was better and didn’t have any problems.

There was one thing though, one of my friends noticed that Hiker had a little “skip” when she would be walking or hiking, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Then for a couple of years, I didn’t notice the “skip”. But then one day about 3 months ago, Jean and I had taken Hiker and Jean’s dogs over to the dog park and we noticed Hiker skipping again when she ran.

Well Hiker had seemed fine for all this time until last month. I noticed she was once again whimpering when she would jump up on the sofa or bed. I had an appointment at Tags Vet Clinic to have her teeth cleaned, so while there, I had their vet look at her. He thought she had “tweaked” her back and gave me some pain killer medication, and within 3 days, she was fine again.

Since then, I’ve taken her on several walks and a couple of hikes and she seemed to have no problems, but I again noticed she was having that little “skip” in her walk again.

About 2 or 3 nights ago, she was on the bed with me and I was rubbing her belly. She decided to get of the bed and she jumped off. When she hit the floor, she made that terrible yipping sound like a dog who had been hit by a car. She ran into the living room, yipping loudly all the way with me right behind her. She hid in the corner by the dining room table and did not want me to touch her. She growled and nipped at me when I tried to see if she was OK. I let her alone and around 1 am, she came back to bed and didn’t make any sound of pain when she jumped back up onto the bed. I checker her out and it didn’t appear that anything was broken. The next morning, she was back to normal…running around playing and having no pain but I kept an eye on her.

I took her on a short hike on Thursday and she didn’t seem to have any problem. In fact, she was pulling me up the hill on the trail. Friday morning, Jean and I took the dogs for a morning walk and she seemed fine then too. But when Jean was grooming her, she yipped a couple of times when Jean was trying to wash her backside.

All this time though, Hiker has been playing with me, running around, wrestling on the sofa, etc. She loves to roughhouse with me.

So we now come back to today. I was sitting on the sofa checking my email on my laptop. Hiker was on the other end of the sofa sleeping. She woke up and went to jump off of the sofa and the minute she hit the floor, she once again let out that terrible yipping. She got on her big pillow in front of the fireplace and continued to cry. I immediately went to her and once again, she didn’t want me to touch her. I finally got her to calm down and I immediately put her in the car and took her up to Little Paws Pet Hospital.

It's a fairly new vet hospital and several neighbors have tried it and said the vet was great and that they really liked the service. Little Paws takes “walk-ins” so I checked Hiker in and we sat for about an hour waiting for the doctor to see Hiker. The vet is a young woman and very nice. She asked me if Hiker was eating and going to the bathroom normally and I said she was. She tried to check Hiker out, but Hiker tried to bite her, so she had to put a muzzle on Hiker. While I held Hiker’s head, the doctor started checking out Hiker’s shoulders, back and hips. She noticed that Hiker’s right hip would not extend as far as the left hip did. I’m thinking that when she had the pulled hip muscle 3 years ago that it was the right side.

Well the doctor thinks the hip muscle is pulled again. She gave me some chewable anti-inflammatory meds to give to Hiker for a week and she told me to bring Hiker back in a week if she is not better so they can do x-rays.

I feel so bad when Hiker hurts. It makes me want to cry when she is in pain. It’s like when human babies hurt and cannot tell you what’s wrong.

Hiker is such an active dog. She loves to run and jump and like I said, she loves to roughhouse with me, so I can understand how she would have muscle injuries.

So that is how Hiker and I spent our day.