Anouk Update
Hi everyone,
I haven't done an Anouk blog post in awhile, and I know many of you love them. So I'll give you an update on the last month we've been home.
Anouk has thoroughly been enjoying playing outside, going for adventures in the National Forest, and taking long naps. She wakes me up at 5:30 every morning. We have breakfast, make a day of being outside, and do it all over again tomorrow. It makes me happy to see her happy.
About a month ago, we started noticing that Anouk wasn't putting as much of her weight on her back legs, which lead to her having episodes of limited"toe-touching" with her right back leg. Dogs are fickle animals; at first I thought she wasn't used to the way the ground felt on her feet since the snow had melted. Then she started lying down on walks after becoming frustrated. Granted, our little apartment has a very steep hill and carrying Anouk up after a walk was possible, but not ideal. Yes, I'm a student-athlete turned doctoral student, that's why we're walking. Anyways, as I picked Anouk up, I could feel her leg pop in. Then when I put her down, she walked as if nothing happened. Yikes.
I had one week of classes and practicum left for the semester, and promised Anouk that once we got home we would have her looked at. In the meantime, I would lift up my dog every time her leg came out of alignment. At this point, I couldn't quite figure out why I was struggling to lift her. Not even 6 months ago, I could lift many, many 60 lb cheese blocks at the cheese shop. The last time we had this dog weighed, she was 40 lbs. Yikes again, Mama.
So the semester ended, we traveled North and got Miss Anouk a veterinary appointment. Ultimately, Anouk's knee is out of alignment, which is something she was born with structurally. The limping didn't occur when she younger because she weighed a lot less. She's a completely healthy weight right now, but dogs that weigh more are more affected in their activity than smaller dogs. Oh, yeah and Anouk weighs 70 lbs. This means two things: her DNA test was very accurate, and I was carrying a large dog this whole time.
This is not something that resolves, in fact, left untreated it will affect her more and she will become more frustrated as time goes on. Anouk will be having knee surgery in 2 weeks, and will be in recovery for 6 weeks post-op. I feel that when you have the opportunity to take care of something once and for all, you might as well do it. One of my favorite quotes by Lemony Snicket reads: "If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting the rest of our lives". Frankly, I'd much rather Anouk be enjoying the rest of her life, and that's exactly what we're going to do.
Please send us good vibes, thoughts, prayers, the whole nine-yards. We're appreciative for your support in this mountain we have to climb. I'll be providing updates every now and then after her procedure. She's a tough girl, and she'll be just fine.
Much love,
Shannon & Anouk
Hi everyone,