Good Day and Bad Thing...

On Friday, Richard accompanied Flint, Echo and myself on our morning walk. As usual, at the top of the hill I turned and began a slow jog back down. The dogs followed with Echo outpacing us easily. I looked over at Flint just as he stumbled, righted himself and began running again...on three legs. I thought he got a rock or splinter in his left rear leg. When we got home I cleaned his paw real well but didn't find anything. Bruised muscle, I thought.

That evening he was still limping, so I gave him one of the arthritis pain meds the vet had prescribed. We watched him all day Saturday but he didn't seem in pain. Sunday he was putting weight on the foot. On Monday we headed to the big city with my parents. That evening when we came home, Flint was once again not using the leg at all.

Yesterday we went to the vet.

Flint has torn his cruciate ligament. The vet gave us a higher dose of pain/anti-inflammatory meds, and suggested a two week wait for the joint and muscle to "settle down." After that will be an evaluation and possible surgery to correct the problem. 10% of cruciate tears heal themselves. The other 90% require surgery.

The vet, in manipulating the entire leg without Flint acting like there was pain, made an interesting comment. He said that it is possible that Flint's dysplasia may have been a partially damaged ligament and that Flint's little jog simply ripped it the rest of the way. If Flint goes in for surgery in two weeks, the vet will take X-rays to determine if this is true. I will be extremely relieved if this is so...it means my dog has a lot more healthy years without hip joint worries.

I couldn't capture the sunset the other day, but today, when I took Echo out for our walk/run I managed to get shots of another perfect sunrise. Its so nice to see God's handiwork!



The color of the sky, the bronze/pink/golden clouds, the whisper of the road between the trees...a perfect shot that makes me rejoice that "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."



The shot of the daytime moon between the branches of a big pine tree was just too perfect to miss.

Busy, busy, busy...

Richard and I have been so busy with the house! It seems we slipped into fall without hardly knowing it. Leaf colors on the lake were very pretty but each time we headed to town I forgot a camera. Actually, leaf color everywhere was nice. Here's a shot from the front porch towards the road.



Echo, Flint and I have been walking up the road every morning, about a quarter of a mile. We see the school bus driver most days. I'm working hard to keep Flint much slimmer this winter because the dysplasia is aggravated by weight. I've been making both dogs run all the way home. I'm hoping our little sprint will help me drop some pounds, too. LOL

Today we got to the top of the hill and the most perfect sunrise was coming up. The sky was blushed pink at the horizon and the sun was a big orange/red/pink ball. Just above it was a jet vapor trail tinged the same colors. The tree limbs were hanging just right below. I rushed home to get the camera and drove back up the hill to take the shot and by the time I got there, the perfect sunrise was gone...

I always thought Ansel Adams was a little arrogant because he and his assistant sometimes spent hours setting up a photo shoot and then often, AA wouldn't even take the picture because it wasn't "perfect." Now I know what he meant. The play of light and color in a given landscape only lasts seconds sometimes. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.