The leg

I received a number of comments on my beach blog post yesterday applauding my farm pup Roxy's use of her left rear leg following the nasty ACL tear injury (and subsequent surgery) she had in June.

Because a great many of you have supported Roxy through this whole ordeal and then commented on this one, specific thing yesterday, I feel the need to share a bit of the "behind the scenes" story from yesterday with you....

Roxy is doing better. She is using her leg more. She is, however, for the majority of her day, still a three-legged dog. To our delight, she does, at times, have joyous bursts of energy, enthusiasm and capability that enable her to use all four legs - just like she used to. Unfortunately, these don't last long and they are what they are: bursts. And she always feels the pain afterwards.

Jim and I miss her former joyous energy so much, we are guilty of taking her to the one place we know she will have such bursts of joy: the beach.

There are people who don't believe dogs can smile, but our girl sure can. And she was, as she always does, when she was running on the sand:


Her entire body was smiling, in fact:

But she also knew when to stop. One moment she was running:

And then she was done. Right there, in the water, she decided that was it for the day:

And then she was a three-legged dog again:

She definitely overdid it yesterday, but believe it or not, this is part of her healing process, according to her vet. She will stress the leg and then need a day or two to recover. This stress and recovery cycle supposedly makes her injured leg stronger.

So after yesterday, today was a recovery day:

The look on her face this morning told me she was feeling more than the usual, slight discomfort:

So I pulled out her Rimadyl, an anti-inflammatory kept on-hand for just such a purpose:

She is such a good pill taker. It helps that this one is chewable and tastes like a doggy biscuit:

Then she rested some more. In her crate:

And under our bed:

But just so you know, we totally wore Enoch, our visiting dog, out, too:

He whole-heartedly supported Roxy's healing process by sleeping most of the day away himself:

In Roxy's dreams - and mine - this is how she'll spend next summer:

Until then, we'll make do with the joyous bursts.