Tap, tap, tap. That’s the sound Bode makes as he walks across the tile floor now. It’s his leg splint that’s making the tapping noise. Yep, he fractured a metatarsal bone in his left front foot, so he’s all bandaged up complete with splint. We aren’t quite sure how it happened, but we had been gone for quite a while on Friday and the dogs were crazed when we let them out after arriving home. The day before I watched him slide down the stairs to the deck backwards because he was play fighting with the other dogs. So, we can only assume he was doing something equally as dumb because he came back in the house on three legs. At first I thought he just twisted it, or sprained it. It was pretty swollen on Friday night and we iced it and gave him aspirin and the swelling seemed to be down by bedtime. Saturday morning, however, his foot and ankle joint were swollen to almost double, so off to the vet we went.
When we pulled up to the vet’s office and were getting Bode out of the car, another car pulled up beside us. We heard someone exclaim “Hey, look in my car!” and sure enough, the man had a Bernese with him. He was actually bringing his cat to the vet and the Berner was along for the ride. As we sat chatting with him and waiting to be called for our appointment, a woman and her daughter came in with yet ANOTHER Berner and a 3 month-old Berner puppy! Now, in a town of only 200 people, to see all these Berners in the office at the same time was pretty amazing! Bode was much exclaimed over by the other people in the office (it was pretty busy on a Saturday morning) and he took it all in stride. He was an angel throughout the whole examination process, the x-ray, and subsequent bandaging. He wasn’t too sure about this thing on his leg at first [it goes up to his elbow and he can’t bend his leg], but he now taps his way around the house and down the steps just fine. We’re supposed to keep it dry so they gave us an IV bag to tie on his leg when the grass is wet. Should be interesting to see how well this goes for the two weeks he’s supposed to be splinted. As you can see by the photo, he is still smiling through it all. That’s our Bode!
