Poor Mr. Ned

I guess I should tell you whats going on with Ned huh? The Sunday before Christmas we went up to play in the snow (see older post). We had a blast! Later that night we had some friends over for dinner and they brought their pups to play. Ned just stayed on his bed and was very sluggish. We just thought that he was worn out from all the excitement (it was our first time up in the snow this year) Over the next few days however, we noticed Ned favoring his back left leg. Not putting any weight on it at all sometimes. He was having trouble going up the stairs and would occasionally stumble. Our neighbor was a surgical vet tech and took a look at our pitiful Mr. Ned. She thought that he strained the interior ligament in his knee and that we should keep him off of it for a while.
And so began our relaxed and lazy lifestyle that we adopted over the holidays! After nearly 3 weeks of little to no exercise Ned was doing much better and seemed to be putting weight back on his leg. We decided that he could handle a bit of running around and took him up to the school to chase the laser light a bit. Boy were were WRONG! he did fine while out there- but not even an hour after we got home he was back to not being able to use it. I made an apt with the vet and brought him in. They were unable to fully evaluate him because he was too nervous and tensed up (they took him into the back without me and he freaked out) So the Doc made "an experienced 30 year" guess! That his knee ligament (a different one then Carol thought) was either fully or partially torn and that we needed to bring him back so they could put him under to be able to fully feel what was going on and then operate if necessary. This whole ordeal would cost us $1,600!!! That was a little too much for us to swallow on a "guess" We also were not very happy with how this vet handled things- we were not allowed in the back with our dogs at all for anything. So Alex is currently on his way down to Ferndale to a vet that a friend reccomened. They are supposed to be very personable and good with the animals. So we'll see what their evaluation is in a few hours!

Here are a few pictures of Ned. Carol suggest we try to ice it- which is a bigger deal with dogs then it is with humans for sure!