Cali-Toe
On Labor Day, which was Monday last week, Cali was doing her usual running/jumping/diving into the pool to chase a tennis ball Ryan was throwing into the deep end. Nothing out of the ordinary for this basenji. But then while we were watching her run around the yard with the other dogs, we noticed her limping and then holding up her left paw as if it was hurt. We decided she may have gotten something stuck in between her toes, causing the obvious discomfort so we dried her off and brought her inside. Not more than 30 seconds after we finished toweling her off, Ryan shouted that her toe was dislocated. Brady was holding up Cali so only her back feet were on the ground and I could see her poor toe bent outward in an unnatural way. My heart was racing. I grabbed my purse and car keys while Ryan scooped up our baby and we drove frantically to the Emergency Pet Clinic.
Two hours and $375 later, the vet determined that it wasn’t a break, but a soft tissue tear, which was causing the toe to easily dislocate. She needed to be on a strict regiment of no jumping, no running and no wrestling for at least a week. Cali was not happy about this or the thermometer they shoved up her butt.
It has been one week and two days since the incident and the swelling that filled her toe the day after it happened has finally gone down. She lets us touch her foot and even squeeze the toes slightly, but the knuckle on the boo-boo toe is still a little tender.
Every time that Ryan or I leave Cali behind to go for our run, we get the sad eyes as she sits next to her leash that we leave hanging on a dining room chair. We can not wait until she has fully recovered so that we can bring her for a run and even to her cousin’s house so she can visit Buddy, Zoe and Lola. But until then, she is house bound, with no long walks or jumping games. I read online that it can take as long as six weeks for this kind of injury to completely heal. But the longer we wait, the better off she will be in the long run.
This past weekend, a football player got the same injury and Clark called it a “Cali-toe” during casual conversation, which was funny but also endearing.
