So… after Gulfport Vet had my dog for six hours yesterday and still hadn’t really had a chance to look at her, I went and got her and brought her to Bay Moorings Animal Hospital, where they promptly x-rayed her and got her fixed up.
The concerns? Well, holes in her where the pit bull had bitten her… three major ones that, luckily, didn’t need stitches. Both vets had concerns that her jaw and right leg had gotten broken, but x-rays revealed that the bones hadn’t gotten broken or crushed.
She’s a very lucky little puppy, and I can’t say enough good things about this clinic or Dr. Cunningham, who spent a lot of time explaining what we should do to make sure Calypso got better as fast as possible.
There is a good probability that some muscle got torn and/or ripped away from her bones, and she had a big hematoma on her chest by one of the bites. They put a compression bandage on her (she looks like a little sausage) that has to stay on for a few days. The bandage, as I understand it, will help the hematoma go away faster and greatly increase the probability that the muscle re-adheres to the bone. She’s also on antibiotics because the biggest concern now is that she doesn’t get septic from the dog bites.
While I went to class last night Tom watched her and, as near as I can tell, kept her in his lap for about four hours. When I got to his house he just seemed delighted to be able to stand up. She was still pretty doped up- the first vet had given her an opiate derivative in preparation for the x-rays because she wouldn’t stop screaming (and can you blame her? It would be like an elephant grabbing you and shaking you viciously while it bit you)- but otherwise OK.
By now, though, she’s recovered enough to become a puppy pain in the ass again, which makes me happier than I can express with just 26 different letters. She’s trying to help post this blog before I’m ready, and she’s adding her own comments (mostly things like \\ and =]=, which may mean something in canine but not much to us lowly humans). The chief way I can tell she’s feeling better? It’s getting increasingly hard to obey the vet’s orders, like no jumping on the couch- she wants up, she wants down. She wants down, she wants up. Over and over again in some maddening cycle that has motivations only she can grasp.
But this story could have had a much worse ending. I’m still amazed that I didn’t get bit and equally amazed that it was so easy to find the attacking dog and keep it contained until Animal Services could get there.
There is, of course, almost no chance of finding out who so recklessly owned that animal. It doesn’t matter; even if I knew who owned him, I doubt very much he or she would pay for the vet bills. And let me reiterate… I don’t care. The whole thing cost me less than $400, which is a hell of a lot of money to me, but she is alive and in one piece.
And into something, I can tell. As I type this, it’s just too quiet. Gotta go check and see what she’s up to…
