Yesterday afternoon Sky and I came home like always. We walked through the door and Jack was not there to immediately greet us like he usually does. I whistled for him to come and he came up tail wagging. Sky put Jack on his leash for his afternoon walk and headed outside while I busied myself inside. Not five minutes home Skylar texts me from outside, she's a teenager the phone is permanently attached to her hand, saying that Jack won't get up. So I go outside with my phone in hand, I'm just as bad, and go to see what the problem is. Well I go out back and don't see Sky or jack so I call out to Sky and get no answer. I walk to the side of the house and to the back of the shed and still no sign of her or Jack. I call out to Sky again and still no reply ( she was probably texting). So since you can usually only get a teenager to respond to a text, I had to text my child to find out where exactly she and jack were in the yard.
By now I know what you're thinking," why didn't you just circle the whole house?" the answer to that is simple, If I had just circled the whole house my child and the dog would've been circling behind me with her and I never seeing each other. So I text her and wait for her to reply saying that they were on the side of the house by the chimney. So I go through the backyard and round the corner to that side of the house(Keep in mind that from the backyard to that side of the house is not that far away and she should've been able to hear me calling for her) and low and behold There's sky and Jack, By this time jack was up and wagging the tail. So I figure Jack is just up to his usual tricks, he is kind of a smart ass, and wasn't ready to go inside when Sky was ready.
I take Jack's leash and he follows me all the way to the front porch with no problem at all so I decide to pass the front door, as it was locked anyway, and halfway to the other side of the porch Jack lays down. At this point I figured maybe he was just being a little stubborn since the weather was nice, and tell Skylar to go around through the back and come open the front door. I finally get jack back up and inside and bring him into the kitchen for some water. Jack has a bad habit of not eating or drinking when we're not home, so I figured he was a little dehydrated. I didn't truly realize anything was wrong until he just stood in the kitchen not going to his food bowl even when I had put some bacon bits in his dish. So I brought his food and water bowls over to where he stood and noticed at this point that his left front shoulder area was twitching like he was having a real bad muscle spasm.
Jack still didn't try to eat or drink, so I took a couple bacon bits out his bowl and held them up to his nose which he them proceeded to lick the bacon bits out of my hand. Once he did that he ate just fine and then drank his water, which made me feel a bit better. I put a call into the Vet and told them what was going on telling them I thought maybe he had pulled a muscle or twisted his shoulder, they agreed and set us up with an appointment for this morning saying that if after hours I felt his condition had worsened to call and I would be able to bring him in. After the call to the vet I had asked Skylar if jack had gone to the bathroom at all when she had taken him out and she had replied that he hadn't.
Well I knew he had to go do his business since he hadn't gone at all yesterday except for about 5:30 that morning when Sky took him out before going to school. I had remembered I had an anti-inflammatory medicine for him that was left over from last year when he ran away from my parents house while we were out of town and had managed to hurt him paw. I located the medicine and gave him a dose which was not an easy thing to do. He won't open his mouth when he knows it's medicine now matter what you try to do, but since it was liquid I did manage to get him to at least lick it out of the syringe a little at a time. Once the medicine kicked in I took him back out and he finally did his business.
When we came in he settled on the floor next to the couch by my feet and didn't even try to get on his couch, so I knew he was hurting. A little while later the neighbors door could be heard barking outside, which usually causes jack to run to the door and bark and growl, he barely lifted his head up and huffed. I figured him not getting up was maybe a good thing being his shoulder was hurting and that the more he tended to stay off of it and rest the better. When Sean had gotten home I had told him he had better be sweet to Jack (Sean likes to harass and tease Jack in a guys being guys sort of way) and told him that jack was not feeling good. Sky and I had left a short while later to go pick up Raisin Canes for dinner as last night Raisin Canes was holding a fundraiser for Sky's high school. As we ate dinner at the coffee table Jack was Laying by my feet as always. I happened to drop a piece of chicken not far from jack's nose and I expected him to lift his head and hurry up and grab the piece of food, but instead I got the poor pitiful puppy eyes saying feed me. So I scooted the piece of chicken closer to him and he, with that lazy I'm dying effort your husband and kid gives you when their sick, licked up the piece of chicken.
As the night wore on Jack just laid there like a fury pathetic lump. When it was time for his last walk of the night we tried and tried to get jack up with no use. At this point I think I began to panic. I didn't know if I should call the Vet as it really was late and I would've hated to make the vet leave their house to meet us at the clinic just for them to tell me he just hurt his shoulder. I decided to give jack another round of medicine as it had been a good while since I gave him the first dose and went off to take a shower asking Sean if he could try to take Jake out again once the medicine kicked in. The next thing I know here comes Jack and Sean into the Bathroom while I'm trying to take a shower. Sean had an uncooked hot dog and breaking pieces off and tossing them on the floor to Jack trying to get Jack to follow the trail of hot dog into the bathroom. Seeing these two doing this cheered me up a bit. Sean decided he was going to go back up front and leave jack with me. Well Jack took this as his cue to play and run down the hall. So I had asked Sean to try and take jack outside again since he seemed to be feeling a little better, to which he agreed.
By the time I finished up, Sean and Jack, I was surprised to find, were not yet back inside. I figured maybe Sean was having a problem getting Jack back in so I went out to find them. I was shocked to find the two of them in the field next door with jack being his normal self. By the time it was time for me to go to bed I wanted to be near Jack so that I could keep an eye on him during the night so I was ready to sleep on the couch, but since Sean was up playing his drums and would continue to play till about 4am ( good thing they're an electric drum set and he had headphones) He told me that Jack could sleep in the bed with us, which has been forbidden since we moved in with Sean. So in order to get jack back into our bedroom again Sean grabbed more hotdogs. when we finally got him into the bedroom Sean picked Jack up and put him on the bed, where Jack stayed curled up next to me all night.
This morning we got up, took Sky to school and then it was time to get Jack into the truck to go see the Vet. Prime example of Jack being a smartass, I open the back door so jack can get in. He looks like he's going to need some help so I open the driver side door to put my purse and keys onto the seat so that I have two hands to lift jack into the truck. What does jack do? jumps right on in to the driver seat and refuses to get out the truck or to go into the back seat. So Sean comes out picks jack up out the front of truck, and places him onto the back seat. We get to the vet only to have Jack act like there's nothing wrong with him, just like a little kid who has the flu after the fever breaks.
40 dollars later, the vet confirmed that it was simply nothing more than either a strained or pulled muscle. I tried to tell her that the dog that was before her was not the same dog from last night who was lethargic, pathetic, and looking like he was about to die at any minute.
Sean put it best when he said Jack is the best actor he's ever seen. He milked the pulled muscle for all it was worth grabbing up as many treats, attention, affection, and privileges as he could possibly get away with. Who says a dog doesn't know how to milk an injury for all it's worth?
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