Brandy's Adventures

We had a light sprinkle last night but this morning the weather was darkly overcast with rain close by. We decided to go on a walk at Lake Poway since Brandy was still recovering from her split nail and the grass would be easy on her foot. It started to rain just as we started our walk. We took shelter under the eaves when it was raining the most, then continued our walk.

Soon, I heard  Brandy eating something and tried to get it out of her mouth but she wouldn’t let me do that. She appeared to have swallowed but then kept on mouthing for a bit. Less than a minute later, I saw something hanging out of her mouth and then my eyes focused on the swivel of a fishing leader. The line was difficult to see but I quickly understood the situation, carried her to the car and rushed her to her vet. I was careful to see that there was plenty of slack in the leader.

The vet sedated Brandy in order to see the fishhook, but was unable to see it. The vet took an x-ray (see image above) and determined that the fishhook was in the esophagus. We were sent to an urgent care facility in Escondido that was equipped to perform an endoscopy.

After discussing the situation with the urgent care vet, we left our phone numbers and went to Shirley’s sister-in-law’s home to wait for the results. About two hours later, the phone rang and we heard, “Good news!” Such sweet music to our ears!!! There was no major damage to the esophagus as the barb hadn’t caught. There was no perforation.

I picked up a groggy dog who wasn’t especially happy to see me as I had taken her to the vet so many times recently. I think I lost Brandy’s trust. She has to be kept off food for twelve hours and needs medicine—one of which can’t be in her food—for about a week. It’s difficult hearing her whimper while searching for food in the kitchen.

She’s now asleep curled up on her blanket.

Brandy went to bed last night licking her bandaged paw. About a half hour later she woke me up and held her injured paw to me to fix. When Brandy gets a sand burr in her paw on a hike she limps to me and lifts the paw waiting for me to remove the burr to ease the pain. I felt sad that I couldn’t relieve her pain. I loved on her and she soon went back to her bed.

After another half hour, she was back at my bed holding out her paw to me again. I lifted her into my bed and for over an hour slowly rubbed her head, side and the leg above the injured paw. She repeatedly licked the paw, occasionally throwing her head back on the bed with her eyes closed. I knew she was in pain. We went to sleep after a couple of hours. Several times, I half-awakened to hear her licking and would rub her for a while to ease her pain as best I could.

Shirley, Brandy and I went to Poway Dog Park this afternoon for Brandy to play with some of her friends. For some unknown reason Brandy was “snippy” at several of the dogs, which happens occasionally. Suddenly, someone pointed to Brandy and said she had blood on her. I quickly ran to her and found blood on her right front paw. Upon further inspection, I saw that she had a nail split with one piece going off at a 45° angle into the adjacent nail. She didn’t complain much when I picked her up and carried her to the car which was about a quarter mile or less away.

We immediately went to Brandy’s vet, just before closing, and she was fearful, as she usually is when she recognizes that she is going to the vet. The vet looked at her paw and then took her to the treatment room. Brandy looked back at Shirley and me, appealing for help as she was lead away.

Brandy returned with the nail trimmed and a bandage around her foot, the bandage to be worn for 24 hours. She tried to chew the bandage several times; we told her “no” and she finally left it alone. Sadly, there will be no more hiking for a while.