Shiloh’s Trip To The Vet . . .

Our dog Shiloh, who is actually “The Batman’s” therapy dog (in training to be a full service dog) has developed quite a limp in his front right leg. It comes and goes, depending on if he’s just gotten up, or has been very active. We were concerned about whether or not he had been injured, and were hoping it would just be something like arthritis. I thought he was way too young for it to be arthritis, but my husband pointed out that if he had a previous injury from before we adopted him, that could cause it to develop. so, off to the Pet Hospital we went yesterday.

Well, Shiloh right off the bat HATED when his temperature was taken! And because he was less than compliant, it was necessary to put him out for his x-rays, so we needed to leave him there until he was done and came out of the anesthesia, etc. Here is what was discovered, poor baby:

At some point before we adopted him, Shiloh was shot with a pellet gun. The pellet shows up on the x-rays. The Dr. showed me where is had hit the shoulder bone, which caused scar tissue and then arthritis, then it ended up deep in the muscle as well. She feels that it would cause way more harm than good to go trying to dig it out at this point, so he came home with anti-inflamatory chewables for one week, then she’ll see him on an outpatient basis to check on how he’s doing with the med before prescribing it long-term. Then, he’ll have to have blood work every six months to check liver and kidney function.They also drew blood to check for heart worm, and once it came back negative he received a shot to prevent it which is good for six months. None of his other shots are due quite yet. Here’s a picture of our poor little guy when we got home:

The green bandage is where the blood draw was done. we were able to remove it shortly after this picture was taken. So Shiloh didn’t have much fun yesterday, but he’s pretty much back to normal now.

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