Buddy’s Journey

A week ago today, my loving Buddy was hit by a car. My husband had just picked me up from work with Buddy in the car as he always does. When we got home, I let him out of the car right in front of our house. He was on a scent in the middle of the road but when I called him out of the street, he followed. All of a sudden he must have seen a squirrel or bird and he bolted back out into the street before either of us could do anything. And that’s when he was hit. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Luckily my husband and I were together and many neighbors came to our assistance immediately. Our sweet Buddy was laying on the pavement just staring up at us, bleeding from his head and in complete shock. We rushed him to the emergency Vet and from there all we could do was wait. After he was stabilized we were told he he had swelling in his chest, a puncture in his lung and his left front leg had essentially been torn away from his body from the inside causing severe nerve damage. They then kept him overnight for monitoring.

Well Buddy did very well overnight and to our surprise we were able to take him home the next morning. At that time we learned that Buddy’s leg would most likely not recover or regain any function and the vet started to talk with us about the possibility of amputation. Other than the leg injury, Buddy just needed time to heal, but was overall in pretty good shape. We got really lucky that there weren’t more severe internal injuries, or worse. Once we got him home, you could see that he immediately relaxed and was so happy to be back in his bed and home with us. That was such a relief for me. I was worried that this accident might ruin his spirit. But I’m happy to say that he’s still the same loving and snuggly Buddy that he’s always been.

Now it’s been a week since the accident. He’s already learned how to walk pretty well on his three good legs, but unfortunately that left leg just drags behind. We met with the neurologist yesterday to learn more about what might happen with his leg. Chances are extremely low that he will regain any function in his leg, and even if he did it wouldn’t be enough for him to use it. Ultimately, it would do him more harm than good to keep the leg if he didn’t have much function with it. So we’ve made the difficult decision to amputate and go in on 10/4 for the surgery. My logical side knows that this is the best thing for him and that he’ll recover and lead an active and happy life. But I still haven’t gotten over the trauma and emotion of the accident. I know I will in time, but it’s still hard to believe this happened.

Reading this site has been great and it’s inspiring to see all the happy and spirited tripaw dogs out there. We even got Buddy the Webmaster Ruff Wear harness and started using it today to help him up the stairs (we live on the 3rd floor of a building with all stairs). At least that will give my husband some back relief from carrying him up and down to go potty!

One thing that has developed that’s been unsettling for us is the whimpering cries he’s developed over the past two days. It’s heart breaking to hear him feel pain. He’s still on pain meds from the accident, but he hadn’t been whimpering like this the first several days. The vet doesn’t seem to be concerned and thinks he’s just having tinges of pain in the leg as it’s potentially regaining some slight feeling. Hopefully that will subside.