By Heather O.
For those of you who were waiting with baited breath about the fate of my dog, here it is.
She has mild hip dysplasia, with some mild bone deformaties. No need for surgery, which is a relief. The hips shouldn’t have caused her such pain, however, so the vet wants us back in a month for back X-rays. In the meantime, no running.
No running? NO RUNNING? This dog lives to run. Her entire body screams, “Lookit me! I’m a happy dog!” when DH takes her out each day. And when she doesn’t run, our yard and J’s plush toys suffer her wrath. So what are we supposed to do for exercise for this animal?
“Take her swimming”, the vet suggested.
Which is, without a doubt, some of the worst advice ever given by a medical professional. Sound in theory, perhaps, but utterly impossible in practice.
Looks like J will have to lock up his stuffed animals for a while.
On a different note, you can find my post about books over here, at Segullah. My sister says she doesn’t read me over there because, you know, we try to be thoughtful at Segullah. So if you don’t like being thoughtful, well, don’t go over there. I’m totally not offended. But for that matter, I’m not all that thoughtful, either.




Yes, wet, dirty dog is just what every mother of a five-year-old and a newborn needs! Since you were too skimpy to buy a house with a dog pool (some people!), you should take him to the local lake or pond each day. Then deal with wet smelly dog all day…
Yeah, some things are outside the bounds of decency.
Glad she doesn’t need surgury and you don’t have to make that decision. We had this thing called a Kong for our dog, and he LOVED chewing on it all day while I was at work- maybe something like that would appease her instead of J’s stuffies?
Comment #1 by Tracy MAugust 30th, 2007 at 5:17 pmSince you don’t have a pool maybe you could just train her to do pilates. That might be easier than trying to keep her from running!
Comment #2 by SarahAugust 30th, 2007 at 8:03 pmI feel sad for the dog … it will be hard to explain to an animal that loves to move along that it has to sit still for awhile. Not sure exactly how that is going to work.
Comment #3 by danithewAugust 31st, 2007 at 4:26 amHooray for Kong! Our neighbor has a dog that is a chewer and this is the only toy that has last longer than a week with him. I think he has had it since Christmas. To train your dog to use it, you can put stuff inside, like peanut butter and he will chew all day to get the treat out, and learn out great it is as a chew toy.
Comment #4 by LisaAugust 31st, 2007 at 4:35 amGood luck with keeping the dog still! I’m glad that, tough as that will be, it isn’t anything worse.
Comment #5 by Proud Daughter of EveAugust 31st, 2007 at 6:38 amClearly, the answer is to put in a pool. Stat. Your dog can dig the hole, it’ll save you a lot of money on labor costs.
Or you can sneak her into your community pool at night. Probably nobody will notice the dog hairs clogging up the drains.
Comment #6 by The WizAugust 31st, 2007 at 9:17 amTry the river, there’s a place on the parkway that was great for our dog. He loved it. The puppy we had to take back, Chewy. Anyway, it’s shallow enough for kids, but go out about 10 feet and it’s deep enough for the dog to swim. Take her in the truck, then she can air dry on the way home:) Does she even know how to swim? Believe it or not, Mav had no clue how to swim and hated getting in water where he couldn’t touch the bottom. Dumb dog.
Comment #7 by TrixieAugust 31st, 2007 at 9:45 amSlip the dog some valium…
Comment #8 by SallyGirlAugust 31st, 2007 at 11:37 amTrixie-
Yes, Maggie knows how to swim, but refuses to get into the river because she once fell off a ledge into it, and now is scared of all things wet. She is also terrified of our air vents, whatever that’s worth. Every time she finds one in our house, she sniffs, then backs away, slowly.
I echo your sentiments: Dumb dog, indeed.
Oh, and the truck died. Yes, there was mourning.
Comment #9 by Heather O.August 31st, 2007 at 11:41 amI couldn’t stop laughing about the air vents!! I can see her sniffing and backing up. Good luck trying to figure out how to wear her out without taking her running. I think the glucosamine might be helpful, even if she isn’t allowed to run. Mav had arthirtis so bad that he couldn’t walk but after we started him on the glucosamine he had no problems getting around and went back to being able to run, and that was the only thing we ever gave him. Good luck!
Comment #10 by TrixieSeptember 3rd, 2007 at 8:54 amMaybe the vet has a pool.
Comment #11 by CS EricSeptember 7th, 2007 at 7:28 am