Tootsie

It seems Tootsie has a little fight left in her after all. Tuesday afternoon when the kids and I went to Chase's t-ball game, we locked Tootsie in the courtyard like we always do when we leave the house. Lately, though, she has started squeezing out through the gate to play while we're gone. When we got to Chase's game, they told us it was cancelled, so we turned around and came back home, and Tootsie met me by my car. When we started walking back into the house, I noticed she was limping and bleeding. Once we got her in the house, it was pretty obvious her leg was broken, and she had some pretty large puncture wounds on her belly and leg.

The vet met us at the clinic after hours, took some x-rays, and confirmed that her back leg was broken. Something with big teeth apparently thought she looked tasty. She came home after 24 hours at the vet with a cast on her leg and on antibiotics. Her belly is pretty bruised and a little puffy looking.

She can't get her leg wet, so it has to be tied up in a bag before she can potty. She can't stand up on her own to potty, so we (I) have to take her outside and hold her up while she potties. She won't eat or drink unless we hold the water bowl for her or hand her the food one morsel at a time (at first I thought she was too weak to do it herself...now I think she's playing me). We have her inside the house in a little dog fence, and she basically just sleeps all day. It's been 4 days now, and she did lift her head and bark at me a few times today, so I guess that's a sign she's feeling better. I tried to put a bowl with a little food in her bed rather than handing her bite after bite, but I guess that was an insult to her because she overturned the bowl on the floor as soon as I walked off. I think I smell a malingerer.

Here she is (the black mark on her belly to the right of the cast is one of the puncture wounds):