Mollie's Limp

Last summer, first week of July, we had Mollie out to Margaretsville, along with our Ottawa family. As you can see, Mollie loves to dive into the water to fetch sticks but on this particular day, after just a few minutes of chasing, she developed a painful looking limp. The call of the water was so powerful that she ignored her ailment and continued chasing sticks, rocks, ropes.. anything.. until she couldn't walk anymore. We sat on a log and made her stay away from the water for a bit to give her booboo a break and then we headed back up to the car with Terry blocking her from going back in the water. From this day forward, she limped. The front leg, on the left hand side. We babied it for a month and when it wouldn't go away, we took her to the vet. Not just any vet, but "Jill's" sister, the vet. She pulled, twisted, bent and examined her leg. There was a profound limp, but Sarah couldn't quite pinpoint the trouble. What she did do though was give us that "vet" look, and the "talk" ... Mollie needed to lose weight. She also has arthritis and advised us on some great powder to add to her food. Great.. I thought... my dog is getting old. All of a sudden, we started treated her like an old dog. Helping her into the car, limiting her walks (as the limp was getting worse). We started to call her "an old dog".
Thankfully, after a month of this magic powder, she seemed to be less stiff and jumped up on her window bench with ease, and she sprinted easily across the yard to catch a ball, or chance a critter. But alas, her limp continued, and if she walked for any more than 5 minutes, she limped worse. The next big challenge for Mollie was that we needed to get some weight off her, and maybe that would help the limp.

No treats..... special diet doggie food. Walks were tough.... she limped so bad that it just wasn't worth the walking. Poor thing. She got one 20 minute walk each night, and then she rested all night and her limp would be not too bad. By October she lost 4 lbs... she went from 74 lbs to 70. That is amazing. I couldn't do that and I am over twice her weight...

November and December were successful too and by January she weighed 68 lbs. Our goal was a 10 lb loss so she was over halfway. Of course that 2 lb loss also included a grooming that probably saw her lose a half a pound of dog hair. With the weight loss, we hoped to see an improvement in the limp but it seemed to get worse.

The end of January came along with her second visit to the groomer. She loves the groomer because she gives her non stop treats and I wonder now if she shakes as badly with the groomer as she did yesterday at the vet to get her nails clipped. Well, anyway, off to the groomer she went and when she got home she looked stunning. Sleek and shiny, thin and young (except for the touch of grey on her face). e pranced around like she was a puppy and it was so fun to see her with all the energy. That powder is pretty awesome, I must say.

The next day, after I came home from work, she sauntered out the door to greet me and I noticed her limp was not very noticeable. And when Terry came home, I let her out and watched her run to Terry's car, and again, not much of a limp. We chuckled about the groomer maybe gave her a doggie massage to help her leg, but by that night, her walk showed that she had virtually no limp at all. The same the next day....no limp and for each day since than.. almost 5 weeks ago... she has NO LIMP.

Its our conclusion that the fateful day on the beach, she may have got something sharp jammed up in her nail, and it took two good nail clippings to get rid of it. What else could have cure that limp so suddenly...

We will be very careful from now on, when we take her to a beach!