a traumatic night

Yesterday evening it rained, and since that made it a little cooler outside, I thought it would be nice for me, Sal, Buddy & Aruba to go for a walk around our neighborhood.

That turned out to be a horrible idea.

Before we could comprehend what was happening, a large dog (we estimate about 120 lbs!) bolted from our neighbor's house and jumped on me and Buddy (who is only 36 lbs)! It was AWFUL !!! We were both knocked down onto the street, and although my hands were stinging from scraping the pavement, I was struggling to keep my body between hers and Buddy's, hoping to protect him. It was dark and I couldn't see everything that was happening, but I could hear Buddy yelping from pain. OMG, I'll never forget that terrible, terrible sound of something harming my angel Buddy! And I remember that during the ordeal I was able to see that Sal had scooped Aruba up in his arms, so she was totally protected ... and she is OK, but was shaken up! (I still am)

Afterwards, Buddy could not walk and was in obvious shock. I was hysterical at this point! We rushed him to an emergency clinic (the same one where he had his lung cancer surgery), and a trauma vet took X-rays and tended to his bite wound. Thankfully, the bite did not puncture any organs. But Buddy sure is sore, is walking slowly, and is on pain meds and antibiotics. And of course as a cancer patient, this is the LAST thing he needed. Now we'll need to carefully guard against infection from the bite, since his immune system is compromised from the chemo.

Buddy loves to go for walks, and I was just trying to give him some joy. It has been a rough summer for him, he has been through so much. Instead it turned into a night of trauma, for all of us.

This morning, I'm waiting to hear from a radiologist about additional analyses of Buddy's X-rays, and will keep you posted.