Never a dull moment!

Just over two weeks ago Alice broke her leg! Now Alice is a medium size mix breed dog, one of two sisters (puppies at the time about 9 weeks old) we found wandering around just over a year ago. Molly, Alice's sister is black and cream and has a nice trim figure. Alice on the other hand is rather a chunky young lady and is black and tan with white on her paws.

How Alice broke her leg was initially a mystery to me and my husband Tony. She met Tony at the front door early on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, limping and covered in scratches and gouges and with all the skin on nose, mouth, and chin abraded. She and her sister Molly sleep in a kennel on the small verandah (often called a gallery here in Barbados) at the front of the house. Usually the two are both tethered on 15' plastic covered leashes at night, but because Molly had broken hers a few days previously and of the two had managed to wiggle through the fence on a couple of occasions, we had given Alice's tether to Molly.

Poor Alice looked very sorry for herself and limped around the rest of the day . We were so puzzled...she looked as if she had been hit by a vehicle but was inside the garden not outside in the small road on which we live.

We kept her quiet in the bedroom and she liked the attention!! Her appetite was not impaired in any way...if anything it was increased...she probably thought that food would heal!!

On the Monday we got her to the vet who confirmed a break in one of the two bones in her front right leg. As she is a young dog the bone will remodel with the help of a splint to keep the break area immobile for 4 weeks. She had some beef flavoured tablets for the first week to keep down the swelling. She does not seem to be in any pain and clomps along on her splint when we take her out in the garden for her business. It has been raining quite a bit here so I cut the top part of a coca-cola bottle off and fit the rest of the bottle gently over the splint area like a wellington boot!!

Since day one we have been re-wrapping the splint. Alice gets great joy out of pulling all the padding out between the back of her leg and the straight, rigid part of the splint. Then, if she has time, she chews at the stick-to-itself bandage which keeps everything in place!

Tony and I have to re-do this wrapping at least once a day. We take her back on Tues for a check. Please God we do not incur any more vet bills for a while. (We lost our sweet dog Tansy in December from pneumonia and tick fever. Living in Barbados is an education..especially when it comes to animal health. There are diseases here which we never saw in England or in N. California.