A dog injured, an owner hit by the karma train

There is something in me that always wants to do what I'm not supposed to. Someone gives me good advice, backed up with fact and reason, and I listen. I really do. But then ... a little voice comes into my head and says, "Well ... I meeeeaaan ... what harm could it really do if ... ."

My Squishers developed an unknown injury on Thursday or Friday. She whimpered intermittently throughout the day, and that's not like her. She smiles all the time. She plays. She cavorts. So this concerned me. After studying her a while, I noticed it was attached to certain movements. Standing up from a laying-down position and climbing stairs. She made it up two stairs, froze there and cried. I had to lift her 80-pound tush -- somehow gingerly -- and place her gently on the floor.

I got into the vet on Saturday morning. Dr. Adams is a very nice man at Mn Valley Pet Hospital. But I found it to be a terrible sense of deja vu. A little more than a year ago, I had seen Dr. Adams repeatedly for a similar situation with my elderly dog. He had been crying out at random, and after multiple tests and multiple hundreds of dollars, we were no closer to finding the source of his pain. So I had to put him down. The guilt was pretty tough. Some days, it still is. I wonder if I did enough to find out what was wrong.

On Saturday, we arrived at the decision that Squishers had some sort of back or neck injury. Could be anything. A pinched nerve was likely, Dr. Adams said. Still, I insisted on x-rays. If the bubs had a broken back, I wasn't about to let her suffer longer if I could help it. X-rays were clean. And Dr. Adams sent us home with pain pills and orders to keep the Squish quiet, off of stairs, and to keep from walking her for a week.

That was the plan. The trouble is, by Sunday night, The Fat seemed to be back to her old self in certain ways. Perky. Ready to play. And darn ready to walk. She loves walks. By Monday, she was jumping on furniture again. And by Monday night, she was BEGGING to be taken outside. There were squirrels. There were rabbits. There was a whole world out there, and I was the gate keeper.

After a 10-hour day at work trying my very hardest to learn the new Multiple Measurements Rating for student testing assessment, I needed to run. And here was this poor, sad, deprived dog who desperately wanted the same.

So we ran.

I bet you think you know where this story is going -- to a sad, dark place where Squishers' injury is made worse by a mom who can't say no, who defies the doctor's orders and pays the price for it. Not quite. The karma of my refusal to ever listen to good advice came back to me in a different way.

The Squish did pretty well with running. For a solid 15 minutes, she ran at a clip for me. Then she slowed. Then she had to sniff everything in sight. And then, when we were furthest from home, she started getting ... ill.

My terrible, misbehaved dog has a way of waiting until you leave a room and then quietly -- with the finesse and speed of a jungle cat -- she eats whatever you have out in the open. At lunchtime yesterday, that happened to be a $9 tub of feta cheese.

Dead smack on the front lawn of seemingly EVERY HOUSE that separated us from home last night, the Squishers left 50 cents worth of that feta, until it was all spent.

A good dog owner brings one plastic bag with her on a walk or run with her dog. She does not bring 18 of them.

Maybe next time I will listen to good advice. ...maybe.