“Remoted” Workday 217 / Day 329 (Monday)

Moose has been limping. It started with favoring his left front paw by not putting full weight on it. Soon, he was hobbling on three legs and avoiding touching his paw down at all. When I would try to check for pain areas by touching the shoulder, leg, joints, and paw, there was no reaction, but the limping and hobbling continued. A vet appointment was scheduled, but the soonest one was a few weeks out. 

Moose and his wonky front leg.

When he would put weight on the paw, instead of putting the bottom of his paw with the pad down on the ground, he would bend his lower joint so that any weight was on the top of his paw. The hobbling was getting more jerky and labored. The extra effort seems to be wearing him out, and now even his back legs look wonky. The number for the emergency vet was added to my phone just in case things got worse, it having disappeared when the phone was replaced and more recently added contacts did not transfer over.

After work, when I am parked on the couch, both dogs sleep next to me on the couch or in their beds on the floor. It is lazy and easy and Moose is mostly motionless, and I can stop worrying about him for a few minutes. During the day, he is constantly up and hobbling to the door, the water bowl, and the living room when Winston randomly barks. At bedtime, to spare him climbing the stairs, I’ve been carrying him up to the bedroom in his bed like he is royalty in a palanquin, and it seems like he is starting to enjoy this conveyance method.

His vet appointment is Thursday. I can drop him off first thing in the morning, and he will be there for several hours for observation in between other patients. Calls were made to the vet since the original scheduling to check for cancellations and the chance for an earlier appointment, but there have been none, so we are waiting it out.

This morning, the usual routine was underway. Moose barked me and Winston awake, we went downstairs, the dogs rushed out the door to potty. Food and water was prepared for both, and insulin for Winston. Moose went back outside for his post breakfast potty. The coffee maker was started. That's usually the point where I go upstairs to get dressed. Lately, the baby gate has been set at the bottom of the stairs when I go up, to keep Moose downstairs. This triggers a lengthy barking solo by Moose. When I have tiptoed down stairs to investigate, thinking he was mourning my absence, I see Moose on the floor, barking at Winston on the couch. My best guess is that Winston won’t let Moose on the couch and Moose is vocalizing his displeasure. Today I forgot to set the gate.

While dressing in a glamorous outfit from the winter work from home collection, I heard Moose’s uneven steps on the carpeted stairs. Then it stopped, but he didn’t appear in the bedroom. I went to the doorway, and he was at the next to top step, just standing there, like he got stuck, or ran out of steam or got bored, and was puzzling out what to do next. And then he suddenly tumbled down the stairs. Rolling, flipping, finally bouncing off the wall at the foot of the stairs and onto the dining room floor. And I was racing down the stairs behind him. 

He got up and hobbled a couple feet away and then stood on the dining room rug trembling. And I started crying and holding him and begging for him to please be okay. It was the ugly loud kind of sobbing like in a movie when someone is gutted with grief. I can’t imagine that he wasn’t hurt. He seemed confused by my smothering him. All day, he’s been hobbling a bit more than the new usual hobble, and I’ve been keeping my eye on him even more than usual. Thursday and that vet appointment can’t get here quickly enough.