My poor puppy-dog

Each day in my house is like a mini animal adventure. Today was no exception.

I woke up this morning at the usual time, and went about doing my normal routine - animal clean-up, check the message board, and make myself breakfast. Usually when Sedona sees me stir in bed, she gets up to greet me, but not today. I figured she was being a lazy bones as she sometimes is in the morning, so I didn't think anything of it. However, when I called her to come get her morning yum-yums, she didn't come. Now that's not at all like Sedona. She's always up for her food. I called her again, and this time she tried to get up, but almost fell over. By this time, I knew something is wrong. I walked over to see what's going on, and I noticed that she had her right paw up in the air. I stepped back and called her to me, and poor thing was limping! I looked down at her paw, and it was completely swollen!! I called the vet to make an appointment, but they only had a 3:30 slot open. Poor thing just slept all day until it was time to leave for the vet office.

I have to say, I really like Sedona's vet, Dr. Denise. We have been clients of hers since we moved up here last year. Sedona was such a good girl, letting Dr. Denise examine her paw thorougly. She didn't see any foreign objects or feel anything unusual. Just to be on the safe side, she snapped some x-rays of her paw. The vet techs said Sedona was so good for them!! They had her stand on her hind legs and put her front paws on the x-ray table. She's such a good girl :)

The x-rays didn't reveal anything abnormal, although Dr. Denise did see a little area of potential concern, but she didn't know if we were looking at an abnormality or if Sedona just had her paws at an akward angle. Her paw was so swollen that we could actually see the soft tissue on the x-ray, something that you don't normally observe on a film. So, the diagnosis (at least for now) - some type of soft tissue inflammation most likely associated with an insect bite. I bet anything that she was bit by one of those gigantic spiders we have seen crawling around the house. The weather is getting colder, and the spiders are now moving into the house. It also doesn't help that it's spider mating season.

We left the vet office with pain medicine, an anti-inflammatory/analgesic, and an antihistimine. Poor thing was totally knocked out until about an hour ago. I snapped these pics when she was really drowsy.

Can you tell which paw is swollen? (I'll give you hint - it's the GIGANTIC one.)

And here it is up close...

One more of her looking attentively at her daddy...

I do hope she starts to feel better!!