We went to the big vet hospital in the big city yesterday and Katie had her cast removed. Xrays were done and her leg has healed perfectly and the vet said we did a good job. Whew! I am so relieved. Now...the bad news is that we still have 4 MORE WEEKS of down time!!!! OMG...I think I will go insane. I guess I just thought that she would have her cast removed and that would be that...all done! Nope, now we have to slowly build the strength back up in her leg. The first two weeks she has to have 2-3, ten minute walks a day on a short leash and slowly build up that time. The third week she can take longer walks on a longer leash so that she can trot back and forth. The fourth week she can start to enjoy mild off leash activity around the yard. No ball or frisbee chasing and NO TORI!!! She doesn't have the support and protection of the cast anymore so we have to make sure we follow the guidelines for the next four weeks so we can get the leg strong again.

She is so sad looking right now. She will not walk on that leg at all. She is hobbling around on three legs again. So weird, she was walking just fine and even trying to run with the cast on. The dr. says this is normal. She was so use to the cast that now it feels really strange to her and she isn't use to it. I sure do hope that is the case. I thought by this morning she would start using it a bit but she still won't put it down. She really babies it also. If I someone walks by her she will pull her leg in like she is telling you to be careful and don't touch it. Yesterday she would curl up and lay her head across the leg like she was trying to protect it. I feel so bad for her. Its just the mommy thing kicking in. I just want to make it all better for her. I'm trying.

Oh goodness, I forgot about the smell. When they took that cast off and brought my big girl back to us you could smell her coming. Whew, that was some nasty smell!! It was one stinky, sweaty disgusting mess! Yuck!! We definitely rode home with the windows down...lol.

I would like to thank everyone for all of your support and just for being here to let me talk about it. Please keep Katie in your thoughts while we are going through our therapy month and lets hope it goes quickly. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Now of course I have some pics to show...

I know its kind of hard to tell but the brown spot towards the end of her foot was where the cast was rubbing and starting to make a sore it had started to bleed the day before she had the cast off. Its going to be ok though. If you look towards where the bend is you can kind of see the curvy line where the staples were.


Here is the sore spot. Her toes had gotten like that also and our vet had to cut that part away to relieve the pressure on her toes


Here you can kind of see how the toes got a bit yucky also.


My gorgeous girl


Here she is curled up with her head laying acrossed her leg to protect it.


Thanks for letting me ramble on and thanks again for all the support.

Robin