More Riley

Well, our little guy had to have surgery on his leg last week. When we first adopted him the shelter told us he had a limp but wasn't in any pain and that it was no big deal. Our vet, when we took him there, told us the same thing. She mentioned offhandedly that we could send in the x-rays to a specialist just to be sure. We agreed, and then a couple of days got a call back from the vet. She asked me, "are you sitting down?" Never a good sign. As it turns out Riley's leg never grew properly and one bone was longer than another. As a result his little elbow was having problems as things weren't connecting like they should. We decided to go ahead with surgery, because things had the potential to get a lot worse. I took him into Indy on Friday morning (amidst lots of tears) and left him there overnight for his procedure. We picked him up early Saturday morning, complete with a leg in a splint and a "party collar" (see below). Poor little guy!! We are glad to have him home and he is recovering well. His meds make him pretty drowsy, which is good for now because he shouldn't be doing all that much. His biggest problem right now is his "peg leg" that gets twisted sometimes when he lays down wrong on it. He gets straightened out pretty quickly, thankfully. His yelps of pain make my heart stop! I feel so bad for him! Our biggest issue right now is that we're still dealing with his separation anxiety, and coupled with a bum leg it is hard to know what to do. It should be an interesting few weeks! It sounds like we've got 4-6 weeks of him in a split. It will be a good time for bonding and such, and I'm thankful I can be home with him most of the time.