Louie, My Love

Friday, October 30, 2020

My twelve-year-old mini-Aussie, Louie, recently began showing signs of suffering from arthritis. In the mornings he struggles to crawl from a donut bed and onto his feet. During awake hours, his legs sometimes fail and he may limp or stumble. He’s had to wait a couple of weeks for an appointment with a knowledge preferred vet, and tomorrow, he’ll receive a physical and relief meds.

He’s a cute guy, weighs about twenty-five pounds, is loyal and tough as nails. For years, Louie has run with my horses, keeping up over bunches of miles, various terrains and occasional water crossings. He attempts to rule his three (bigger) canine pals, they tend to ignore him. Besides loving to be out running, Louie adores balls, and used to raid neighbor’s homes to steal their dogs’ balls.

Louie’s not a pooch for everybody. He can be particular about strangers wishing to approach him and may behave aggressively. Otherwise, he’s affectionate toward people who are very comfortable around dogs (he’s an expert at sensing this).

Yesterday evening as we’ve often done, Louie joined me out to release horses from the barn. He was hanging-out in an outer-fenced area when Sunni, who was loose, approached. Louie backed away but was stopped by a fence he used to crawl under. Now unable to drop low to crawl, he instead snarled and barked at Sunni. Her front leg kicked out at him and I panicked, yelled, “Stop!” Sunni paused as Louie pushing aside arthritis bellied under the fence.

I found he’d not been hurt, but now understand that his arthritis makes unsafe many habitual activities.

So half my dogs, Louie and Miles, are arthritis patients. Here’s hoping the doc finds that Louie, like Miles, has an ordinary case, caused by activity and aging. Please, not the autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis.