My dog broke her leg a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like it should be story worthy to most people, but it is my dog after all.

As anyone who has read any of my posts knows, we have a lot of steps in our yard. These steps are made of stone. Stone steps and ice don’t always mix that well.

Thanks to the “Colorado Cyclone” that occurred here a few weeks ago, the stone steps in my yard got very icy.

Now, I always make sure to keep the steps in my front yard, going to my front door salted and clear of ice.

Mostly, because I am accident prone enough without having any help from icy steps.

However, I do not take such great care with the steps to my back door. Which is where my dog goes out to do her business and chase her balls.

So, my best guess is when she tore out of the house and down the stairs after her ball, on this particular morning, as she is prone to do, she hit that ice and broke her ankle.

But I’m really just guessing, as I did not realize anything was wrong until she came back in the house and was one leg short on the ground.

She has come in in this 3 legged position before, usually when she has picked up a rock or one of the annoying little pine cones we have in our yard in her paw. So my first thought was to grab the leg and check for debris.

No debris.

Well, I’m sure she just stepped on something and it’ll be fine. She’ll walk it off.

And she did seem to over the rest of the afternoon.

But the next morning when I came down the stairs and looked at her leg, she had a golf ball growing on the inside of her ankle.

I used to be an ortho nurse, albeit a human one, so I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to find myself at the vet later that day.

Sure enough, that is where we ended up.

After x-rays and aspirations and palpitations, it was decided we needed to make an appointment to see the doggie orthopod the next day.

Sigh.

The next day we find ourselves at the doggie orthopod, where after more palpitations, a review of the x-rays and a CT scan, it is determined she did indeed break her ankle.

Which is how we find ourselves going home  in a hard splint and with strict instructions to keep her quiet and limit activity.

For any of you fortunate enough to have met my dog, you know that she was chasing squirrels the day the quiet gene was passed out, so quiet is not in her vocabulary.

I am already tired thinking about how fun this is going to be for the next several weeks.

When we get home, I also realize we have another problem.

Remember those steps in my yard?

Those all of a sudden become much more challenging with a broken ankle and arthritis in one of her front paws already.

I also realized that throwing my 80 pound dog on my back to get her up the stairs would probably lead to many more broken limbs.

We somehow make it, albeit slowly, up the stairs and to the door, but I realize we are going to need a better long term solution.

So I go to my life- hack partner, Amazon, to see what I can find.

Obviously, my dog is not the first one to have the combination of injury and steps, because I found this handy dandy “dog sling” that looks like the perfect solution, and quickly order it with Prime 2-day shipping.

I know I don’t need to remind you, my faithful readers, of all the fun I have with deliveries at my house, so I know you will not be surprised at all that this did not go as planned.

The package was scheduled to be delivered on Sunday with Amazon Prime shipping service. I get all the alerts that the package is out for delivery, the truck is in my area, and then that they are 5 stops away. Great!

And then I get the alert that my package has been delivered.

Hmm. That’s odd. I didn’t hear the truck or have anyone at the door.

Regardless, I go check outside the front door.

Nope.

I then open the tracking alert and see the delivery note “Handed to resident”

Imagine my surprise since I am the resident and I was not handed any package.

I call Amazon. They have no way to contact their drivers on the road (evidently cell phones are foreign concept to them) so they can’t ask him to come back and try again, or even tell me where he might have delivered it. The best they can do is re-order and re-ship in another 2 days.

Really?

I check with my immediate neighbors, but none of them were handed any package either, so I decide re-order and re-ship is my best option.

I mean it’s not like we really need this sling or anything.

Eventually, 3 days later ( I mean why would I expect it to be delivered on time this time??) it is delivered.

The same day that the person the first one was delivered to, finally decides they really should bring it to the person who actually ordered it.

At least now we have a back up sling. Which in my world, is not really a bad idea.

So, back to the dog, who, for as high strung and neurotic as she is, did a pretty good job of leaving her cast alone.

At first.

After about 6 days, however, I came down the stairs in the morning to find the top half of her cast shredded.

Which involved an emergent call to the vet and them squeezing us into their already packed Saturday schedule for a cast change.

The cast has rubbed at her ankle, so the on-call vet decides to forgo the hard cast and just put her in a soft wrap.

Which does not thrill her actual treating vet when we follow up with him 3 days later, since he really wanted her in a hard cast for at least 4 weeks.

Her swelling is going down and she seems to be doing okay in the soft cast, so he decides she can keep this regimen for the remaining 2 1/2 weeks and call it good.

Obviously, he is not well acquainted with our family.

Fast forward about 4 days later, to the next Saturday.

(Yes, just like with kids, these things always happen on a Saturday when your regular doctor is not available.)

Again, I come down the stairs in the morning (yes, I’m starting to get PTSD about that journey) and start to put on the nylon boot she has to wear over her cast before going outside, and stop.

What is that smell????

Yup, sure enough, on closer inspection, her soft cast is emitting a not very pleasant odor.

You have got to be kidding me.

Queue another call to the vet on a Saturday morning to be squeezed into their schedule.

It is about 8:45 and they want to know if I can be there before 9:30 when the vet goes into surgery for the day.

I am still in my pjs, haven’t finished my coffee, and it’s about a 20 minute drive. Not to mention the additional time it takes to get down the steps and in the car with the doggie sling now.

Sure, no problem. I’ll be there.

So, off we go again. I am considering asking them if we can just take up residence in one of the kennels for the next couple weeks.

This time, after taking the princess to the back for the bandage change, she and the vet come trotting back, this time with no bandage whatsoever on her leg.

I’m sure this is not in line with the treatment plan.

“So, it appears that she peed on her cast, and now has a “pee burn” on her ankle,(sure enough, there’s a good size sore on the front of her ankle)  so I can’t replace her cast”

Only my dog found a way to pee on her cast. Better yet, she found a way to pee on her cast while it was in the nylon boot that was always on when she was outside.

Gotta give her points for style.

We head home again with strict instructions that she needs to stay quiet since she is now without a cast, walking on an ankle that is still broken.

I decide not to review the fact that she missed the quiet gene, but do consider asking if they’ll just send her home and keep me in the kennel at least.

Or can they send me home with enough sedative to last the next 2 weeks? Whether that will go to the dog or me I can figure out later.

Today we were back for the follow up with our regular guy again. I was prepared for his eye rolling. And he literally threw his treatment plan in the trash while we were there.

At least he’s learning that the best laid plans rarely go as planned in our house.

And we are still without a cast until the custom made brace he had ordered to help her transition back to activity  (2 weeks from now when the cast was supposed to have come off) comes in.

Maybe we’ll have better luck with that.