Thursday morning I was standing in front of the tub with the water on, about to step inside when Rich called up to me from the bottom of the stairs, "Baby, I need your help. The dog can't stand up." Well, I'm not sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure it requires clothes. I turned the water off and headed out to the backyard to find Sarah standing just outside the back door shaking like a leaf. Rich had helped her stand up but she was unstable and spooked. Her back left leg was sticking out to the side and she wouldn't move. Meanwhile, Mollie the spaz puppy was going in and out the back door over and over and over as if to prove that her legs were working just fine in case anybody was wondering. I eventually had to pick Sarah up and carry her inside and set her down in the living room. She lied down, panting, and seemed exhausted. I went back upstairs to shower and spent the whole time in the shower thinking I would be getting dressed and going to the vet with my dog.

After my shower, though, she seemed to be doing better and could walk around in the house. We left her while we went to work and she made it outside on her own and back inside at lunch when Rich went to check on the dogs. She has good days and bad, it seems, and this was just a rough morning for her.

I left early for my nail appointment at 4:30 since at 4:15 I had snapped my left index fingernail off closing the trunk of the car and could no longer type. Because of various scheduling issues and getting a new set of nails, I didn't leave the salon until 7pm. This was just enough time to get gas before going to the local SCA meeting to help with sewing projects.

I stopped to get gas and as I was pulling out of the station, Rich called to tell me Mollie had gotten a dog bone stuck on her jaw and he needed help finding a tool to get it off. Something told me I wouldn't make it to the SCA meeting. I headed the two miles home to find a very anxious doberman pacing in the living room and my husband holding a hacksaw in the dining room.

"Uh, I think I'd just rather take her to the emergency vet." "Can you just look at it?" "She is scared already. I'd rather pay someone else to fix it rather than make it worse and traumatize the dog."

I later found out he had already tried wire cutters and several other tools before calling me, so I guess any trauma had already been done. We headed in separate cars to the ER vet (Rich had a hockey game later that night) and they took her straight back. Forty-five minutes and $134.80 later, the dog was a little doped up but fine. They had to sedate her and cut it off with a dremel tool, so I'm glad we didn't try that at home. This is what it looked like on the way to the vet (yes, you know you're a blogger when you point your camera in the back seat to document the dog's mishap online).

We got a young dog for our old dog thinking it would add years to her life. While that seems to be working well, our old dog (with her new arthritis medicine) has been overexerting herself a bit and paying the price. Meanwhile our young dog is, well, being young and sometimes that means going to the ER vet instead of the meeting you had planned on attending. I told my mother it's like having a young kid and an elderly parent in the same house at the same time. They both like to play together, but we're doing a lot of tending to both of them right now. We'll see how long we can last with neither of them in diapers.