My Dog Was In Pain and We Didn't Know What to Do

Two months ago, our dog, Leo, was screaming in pain with his head ducked down and to the right looking like he had dislocated his shoulder. As worried parents, my wife and I went up to him to see what was going on and if there is anything we can do. Nope, Leo backed up, acting as if we were strangers or humans who caused his pain. As Leo continued to scream, I heard my wife starting to cry due to not knowing what to do. I picked Leo up, held him tight, and massaged his neck until Leo calmed down enough to let us see what was wrong.

It began a few days ago when we saw our neighbors with their dog Lucy and a German Shepard puppy. Leo went up to sniff the puppy while Lucy sat down to the side at her parents’ command. Leo got a bit more curious and backed up from the puppy and went to sniff Lucy as well. For whatever reason, Lucy suddenly moved and surprised Leo. Leo quickly turned 180 degrees and ran toward my wife and me. Right after the turn, Leo yapped and screamed for a few seconds, it was the type of scream where you know something went wrong. Afterwards, things were normal and we went home. The next evening was when Leo had his uncontrollable pain. We believe this incident with Lucy was the reason for his pain. We also believe that he may have fell while walking down the slippery stairs at our house.
Now, back to the first night of Leo’s screaming pain, my wife looked for any available veterinarian on a Saturday at 4pm. We found one 10 miles away and went right away. We sat in the vet clinic lobby for about 15 minutes worried that Leo may experience another pain attack. Instead, he walked curiously around sniffing like he’s ready to mark his territory. When the vet finally saw us, we explained everything that had happened and he checked all of Leo’s joints and muscles. No results. Nothing triggered his pain during the examination. Although this might sound like good news, it was not because Leo CLEARLY was in pain within an hour ago. You do not hear a constant high-pitched scream to bark away strangers or you do not see a normal dog suddenly in a hump-back of Notre- Dame-Position backing away from his parents. The vet told us that he would prescribe a few medications and to see a specialist if the pain medications do not work. The specialist may recommend a CAT/MRI scan to see what is wrong with his neck costing around $2000. When the vet said $2000, my wife and I looked at each other in the eyes and saw the sorrow within us. We had just paid off our expensive wedding and we are a frugal pair of Asian-cultured adults. $2000 is an outrageous amount of money and to use this on our dog??? Do we have to think about putting him down today???

We brought the medication home and fed Leo the pills with a side of wet-dog food that he normally gets on special occasions. While things were quiet, my wife and I felt like there was a dark cloud above our heads while we sunk into the couch pondering if Leo, our adopted son, an emotional support member, and a cute dog whom we loved very, very much, would be going away any time soon. “$2,000 is not that bad, we could take out a loan and eat college food again.” “What if the scan says something else and the surgery cost another $2000?? Or what if Leo is still be in pain after?” All of these thoughts went through our minds and we decided to listen to the vet, take the medication and see a specialist if the medication does not work.

Our vet specialist visit occurred Tuesday night, 3 nights after the first pain attack. By now, Leo had already yelped in pain multiple times including 3 times in the middle of Sunday night. I swear our neighbors must have heard Leo scream since it was so loud. But this wasn’t the reason why we went to the Vet. On Tuesday night, Leo had an attack. We picked him up, held him, massaged him and he was calm. Afterwards, Leo went outside through his doggy door to go pee and did not come back. My wife and I took our flash lights and put on our rain coats and went all around our backyard to find him. Leo was hiding behind a bush area near the fence. He would not come out when we told him to and we could not reach him as he just lied there and panted. Eventually we bribed him with some beef stew that we had for dinner and brought him back inside.

We drove to the vet at around 9pm that night when it was pouring rain. We walked into the lobby with Leo in our arm after another pain attack. Leo wore his red sweater to prevent him from getting cold on an October evening in the pacific north west. The clinic lobby was similar to an emergency hospital lobby, it reeked of sickness and gloominess, with its plastic floors and chairs. The 30” television at the corner above a soda machine was playing some gameshow that none of the 3 groups of us were watching. We checked in and waited. 10:30 PM was when a large, limping German Shepard dog walked in showing his old age. When they met the nurse and the dog stopped walking, he just dropped flat on the ground with his legs spread out. We heard the owner crying as she told the nurse that he had been in a hit-and-run. How upsetting and sad this was which also meant that Leo would be pushed down on the list of patients.

At 12am, we saw our vet specialist. He checked Leo’s joints and muscles and told us about the $2000 MRI/CAT scan. Nothing different occurred between this vet visit and the Saturday vet visit except the higher level of confidence in the voice of this vet specialist. However, this vet did indicate in a deep, calm voice that he doesn’t believe Leo is hurt badly. It could be a collapse disc or it could be just that Leo pulled a neck muscle but he tends to believe the latter since he couldn’t replicate Leo’s pain. This time, the vet specialist told us to take three medicines for 2 weeks and to put Leo in a crate so he doesn’t move around a lot. Yes, doc.

My wife and I both work full time jobs but we coordinated our schedules and determined that I will be driving home at lunch to take him out to pee and my wife would leave early from work to give him medication. The medication included a pain reliever, a muscle relaxer, and a steroid. We put Leo in his crate, fed him in his crate, and only let him out to go Pee. He normally hates being imprisoned and shows this by making a mess of his blankets and pillow inside but this time, he just did not care and lied inside the metal box calmly. As the days went by (1 week+), Leo started becoming better by having less pain attacks. A week later, we came home to him lying on the plastic part of the crate with his pillow over him and blankets on the other side. Leo was his normal self again.

The lessons learned from this incident are the following:

1. Listen to the vet. They are professionals.
2. Create an emergency fund for your dog or consider pet insurance. $2000 would’ve been a very expensive loan.
3. Stay calm, whatever happens will happen.
4. Love your pet, you never know when they might not be there anymore.

I wrote this story as my first post ever on Steemit. I am not sure what type of posts I should be writing but thought that I would talk about my wife and I’s favorite thing in the world. When Leo was in pain for those three weeks, we were really affected by this as we were forced to think about the potentially unfortunate outcomes. I hope this story may help those who are in similar situations at the time of reading this and know that dogs can get hurt like humans as well.

Here's our healthy Leo: