Back from the vet

This morning I took Grady to the vet to get x-rays taken of his bad leg. I'm relieved that they found what is causing the problem and there's something they can do about it. I'm not excited, however, about the prospect of my dog needing surgery to fix it. The problem is with his elbow. The vet showed me the x-rays as he tried to explain it, but frankly I'd never seen an x-ray of a dog elbow so how was I supposed to know what I was looking at? It's something like elbow dysplasia, which is supposedly common in big dogs like labs. It probably happened when he was a puppy and growing quickly, and now there's a tiny fragment of bone that's just floating around in the knee causing pain. That's my non-medical explanation. The most amazing thing is that the vet is recommending an arthroscopic procedure which is obviously much less invasive than regular surgery. I appreciate that the vet was up front with me and said that he doesn't have enough experience to perform the surgery. Instead he's recommending vet in Zurich. I can only imagine the cost of taking my dog to a specialist in Zurich for arthroscopic surgery. But considering he really hasn't had any medical problems until now, and considering that it's generally a fixable problem, I'm all for it.

As an added bonus, while they had Grady under sedation they cleaned his teeth. We'd never done that, and I know you're supposed to, but we haven't. Hopefully now he'll have fresh breath.