16 months - Not too cool for school

Well, I should have known better and listened to my dog. I thought the cold was bugging Kili and that was why she was so reluctant to train. Wrong.

Took the little dog to the barn today to work on her weave poles and could not get her excited or running for the life of me. I was acting like a total fool and getting really frustrated with why I couldn't get her going. It wasn't even that cold out. Well, when I went to take off her jammies I had to pick up her back feet in order to get them out of the leg holes. Her left hock was massively swollen. Now, I know for a fact that it wasn't that swollen prior to training because I had to pick up her feet to get her INTO the jammies. However, it has obviously been bothering her since at least Sunday when we had agility class.

The joint is absolutely massive. She has been quiet and reluctant to exercise on it. I noticed recently she's been a little slow to jump out of the truck but just figured it was the cold. But otherwise, she has not been lame on it in the slightest. I do remember that on our hikes on Saturday and Monday that she had been holding that particular leg out of the snow slightly more than the other one, but since she was doing it with both, it was cold out, and she was not otherwise favouring the leg I didn't even think anything of it.

Very swollen left hock.

Normal right hock

 Well, naturally I feel like a pretty crappy owner. And a vet too. But until the swelling showed up today there was really no obvious indication that this joint was a problem. she'll have to have the leg x-rayed tomorrow in full. I took her into the clinic tonight after discovering the swollen hock to get one quick picture just to make sure nothing was obviously broken, but tomorrow I will have to do all the views. Kili has become an increasingly bigger pain in the ass to do anything medical to so I will probably sedate her heavily for these x-rays. Since she is not favouring the leg really at all and only showed pain when I was really handling that leg and manipulating it I am hoping that there are no fractures. I did notice a purple area on the inside of the joint and I am wondering if she had a wound there that has become infected and spread through the soft tissue. I started her on antibiotics as a precaution.