Saturday, February 14, 2009

Ahem. Happy New Year.


So much has gone down since October 21, when Cooper had surgery to remove fractured coronoid process in his elbow. Oh - did I write about that? I didn't.
OK, so the limp didn't get better. We started tracking, but he got so limpy that a 200 yard track had him limping more noticeably at the end of 200 yards than at the start. For a really fit, athletic dog, this was clearly not a good sign.
In September, I discovered a slab fracture on one of his premolars. So, that had to come out under anesthesia. Since the limp hadn't gone away, he was xrayed at the same time.
And, the xray showed, for want of a more technical term, funkieness and arthritis in both elbows, but the left was much worse. One thing led to another and he was scheduled for surgery to remove bone fragments and clean up the joint. It was made very clear to me that this surgery had, essentially, a 50% chance of success - ie making it less painful. As it turns out he had two tiny fragments removed, but the surgery was, ultimately, not successful.

This is going to be primarily a Cooper diary for a while. Stay tuned.