Lucy

Lucy is our latest concern and takes up A LOT of time... particularly at night :)
When we received Lucy, she had been found by a friend who discovered her on the side of the road. We adopted her not knowing she had a really bad limp in her front left leg. We took her to the vet and he examined it looking to see if it was just out of place. Lucy had a lot pain when he was "feeling around" her leg, so he suggested we get an x-ray. The x-ray showed that her leg, closer up toward her shoulder, was completely broken in half. She he took her and performed "minor" surgery on her. He knew she couldn't survive a surgery where they opened her up and inserted a pin into her leg, so he knocked her out and put the bones into place by feeling around. He then wrapped her leg up in a cast, which also wraps around her chest for support. Yesterday she was in a lot of pain, and didn't know how to walk with the heaviness of the cast... she just kept falling over. However today she is much better. She is walking around and learning how to get comfortable when she sits and lays down. The cast prevents her front leg from bending, so it is extended all the time, which really presents a disadvantage when she wants to sit or curl into a cute little ball.

The vet has been really helpful and didn't even charge us for our visit today. He said that he wanted to help people, "us", who are helping a puppy who should be dead now.

It's been a whole new kind of culture shock as we went about this business trying to help this little puppy. We had to help take the x-ray, which was taken at a "human" clinic; then we had to drive the x-ray back to the vet who examined it and then said, "okay, I'll take her now and fix her up". I have to say I wasn't prepared to leave her... it was really strange, I didn't even really know Lucy yet. We had only had her for 24 hours! We went back at 2pm and picked her up. Josh and I were discussing how fast and different the process was here and how something like this would take forever to get done in the States (mostly to liability issues we think). Anyway, it was a shocking experience.

A huge blessing is that she really prefers to go potty outside. So she'll whimper when she needs to go, or we'll notice her heading to the corner which means potty time! The only downside to this is that at night, she cries when she needs to go, which means I have to get up, get her, and take her out. This might not sound like a big deal, but when I'm exhausted, getting her and having to unlock a million locks to get out, it's a big deal! But I know in a month or so when she can hold it through the night, I will be SO grateful.

I have a picture of Lucy in her cast, but I forgot to bring my camera, so I'll post it tomorrow.
Good Night!