pain in the neck

Tiny chumley awoke this morning and probably wondered what it was he had done wrong, the way his mom and dad were still looking at him and carrying him all over the place. With Baxter's condition stable but tail still kinda tucked, I am sure he heaved a sigh of relief when we finally turned George on to a constant low heat, and let him sleep most of the day while we waited for the vet to arrive for Baxter's already-had-been-scheduled weeks ago three o'clock appointment.

By two in the afternoon, our roasted pup left George in search of sun, and wandered about with his tail hanging freely. Holding it, at times, just upright enough in the air, so that I could tell where he was as he navigated past fabric piles on the floor.

Although I was glad to see Baxter's symptoms fading, I was also concerned that the root of the problem might elude us with only minutes to spare from Baxter's appointment. Was our wiener even capable of playing us?

With the help of some range of motion tests, our vet ferreted out Baxter's neck as the source tiny chumley's very real discomfort. All dogs should be able to turn their heads practically 180 degrees on either side to essentially lick at their ribs, yet Baxter let out a giant yelp when his head was turned about 75% to the right. Considering the second dumb thing Baxter did the day before was try to do an unsuccessful half turn jump to get on his kitty perch and ended up slamming the lower ottoman with his right neck and shoulder, things sorta made sense.

And so for the next two weeks, Baxter will get a tasty rimadyl half tablet with each meal. An anti-inflammatory, that should help whether his problems are muscular or disc related. I am relieved to see that chumley is acting like himself again. If his problems come back, we'll know his issue is disc related, but I am crossing my fingers that my little buddy will have many more tail wagging days ahead of him.