For now, back to where I left off. Sue came down to visit me for about a week over Thanksgiving and brought along a few of her dogs. Dad was so kind as to keep the old boys back home in PA. We had a fun time visiting my favorite dog spots, and we got to work sheep here as well as with Christine and Julie and Laura. Julie and Laura took us to a cool place to eat where Sue and I had our first taste of fried green tomatoes - YUM! I am so Southern these days, ha!
On Thanksgiving day we went hiking on the Trail and stopped to enjoy a wine and cheese picnic. It was too bad that Ella couldn't join us for our outings since she was on crate rest for her shoulder.
Poor Ella missed out on visiting one of her favorite swimming holes
Wet Jed
Jed's the only one who doesn't think the camera will steal his soul
Cow-calf-watching
A 2-headed Smoothieface Monster; the sisters are worn out.
On to Ella's shoulder: after speaking with Canapp I had her on rest and Deramaxx for 10 days. She didn't improve, but rather got worse. I was a little annoyed that Canapp didn't seem to be concerned with MY concern. After a total of 4 weeks rest with no improvement, we road-tripped back up to VOSM. We saw Deb Canapp who confirmed that the pain was in her repaired shoulder. No dogs have ever needed another surgical repair in the previously repaired shoulder. The ones that have had to be re-cut had problems in the elbow or the other shoulder. This is out of 400 borders collies who have had RF treatment of medial shoulder instability, and apparently half of these dogs participate in both herding and agility as Ella does. We set-up a surgery date to re-scope her shoulder, and we discussed repair vs. reconstruction. Few dogs have had the shoulder reconstructed, and of those, she couldn't tell me of any that were highly active dogs. Excellent.
While I was waiting for my chart to come to the front desk, Deb came out to ask if I could wait a minute longer so that Sherman could have a look at Ella. She had pulled him away from another appointment to discuss her findings and he was very worried. He got his hands on her and agreed with what Deb found: the shoulder was painful and elicited the spasm characteristic of MSI, though it felt strong and tight (actually tighter than the good shoulder). We had just decided to go ahead with the scoping, and I was going to scrub in as well, when I gave him one last piece of info. I told him that I had the feeling that Ella looked "crooked" when she was looking at me head-on. When I looked into her eyes, it seemed as if they were not on the same level. I'd actually mentioned this to Sue one evening, but she thought I was crazy! This really is the kind of thing you'd write off as "crazy overly concerned owner" stuff, but I just threw it out there. He considered briefly and instead of calling me crazy, suggested that I take her to a good chiropractic vet for neck evaluation.
The VOSM consult was on a Friday, I pulled some strings and got in with Regina Schwabe outside of Appomatox, VA that Monday. She discovered that Ella had a severe misalignment in her neck and a strained teres major (shoulder muscle). Regina adjusted her neck and we took her right outside to watch her go...I'll be darned if she didn't look 75% better just like that! We decided that Ella didn't need surgery because it was not actually her joint that was the problem; it was her neck and a muscle strain. Her treatment regime included several holistic components and exercises to bring her back to full strength over the next 2 months. What great news!!
On the mend
So while I've been rehabbing Ella, I've continued to work with Rae. The big snowstorm that hit near the holidays kept us out of practice for a bit, but I was fortunate enough to be able to move my sheep to a new site that has tons more training opportunities and thawed/melted way before surrounding areas. When we trailered them, I stopped by the clinic to ultrasound the adult ewes. Turns out 2/4 are pregnant! Who knows if they'll keep, but I'm hoping. They are now happily grazing across the street from the clinic, a mile from my house.
