Poor little girl sprained her shoulder Monday. We don't know exactly what happened, but heard her cries of pain out on the porch. I rushed out to see her cringing under a shelf yelping in agony. Poor Freya rushed outside to see if Princess was ok, but Samantha thought that Freya had hurt her puppy and jumped her as soon as she got through the door. She pinned Freya and bit Freya's ear which Freya took great exception to, and the fight was on. This did not help out poor little Princess' distress, and hindered my helping her as I had to stop and grab each of them by the collar until they calmed enough to realize how stupid they were being. I'm so glad these two don't really hate each other, but like sisters they quarrel on occasion. Usually its just a growling, barking argument, however, this was a serious quarrel and might have turned into something worse had I not been there to intervene. Freya has long picked on Samantha's pups, pinning them until they cry. I can't blame her much, Demon played with her much the same way and I had to chastise him a few times for being too rough with her when Freya was young. So Freya thinks that is the way to play with puppies. Samantha, though, has been itching to beat that notion out of Freya for some time. This seemed to her like the perfect opportunity to do so.
Once I separated the two, I took Freya inside and handed her to Jim as he came to the door, and went back out to see to Princess. She was still screaming bloody murder and not putting any weight on her front right leg. Having dealt with injuries before and having human first aid and cpr certs, I examined her carefully, but every time I touched her right paw she howled. There was a tiny bit of swelling around the lower wrist, but not enough to indicate a broken bone or sprain. But her distress continued even twenty minutes after administering a K-9 Asprin (acetecyllic acid 300mg). I put a splint on her leg (a rolled up thick magazine), and we took her down to the emergency clinic in Lexington since it was after hours for our local vet. Biggest mistake ever.
We waited until close to 1am before she was seen, which I can understand with other emergencies, what I don't understand is how an emergency vet can mistake a growth plate for a fracture and tell me that Siberian Huskies have a hereditary problem with their elbows (totally false) and that my little girl needed surgery. We decided to talk to our vet first thing when she opened in the morning (mostly because at that point I didn't believe a word of what was said). Unfortunately, though our vet was busy most of the day, but was able to take about 10 minutes out to take a look at the file we brought with us, the x-rays, and examine Princess.
To our relief, she confirmed my suspicions that Princess was a... well ... wimp, er... Princess, and merely had a sprained shoulder (a far cry from the broken elbow scenario) and did not have a problem with her elbow, nor had she ever heard that Siberians had this tendancy (nor several of the other breeders I've spoken to over the 20 years I've owned huskies...). I'm still deciding if I should lodge a complaint with the KYBVE (Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners) regarding that emergency clinic. It was an expensive lesson, but I'm very glad I learned not to go there before we had a life-threatening emergency... Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is, I will be going to the clinic in Cincinnatti.
Of course all this excitement took its toll on me. My husband and my son had both had a cold which I had managed to avoid until my resistance was pwned by this all-nighter. Needless to say this nasty virus attacked me. All those years of self defense did not help. So I found myself going more hoarse as the day wore on. Bleh to being ill. Fortunately it seems to be milder for me than it was for my husband, poor guy, or was he being a er... Princess?
Ah well the life and times of owning, mushing and breeding huskies. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
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