Sweet Yet Sour

Toeless

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 | Updates

In 2007 when Mike and I first got our beloved Greyhound Cash, he was only weeks from running his last race.  In those weeks he had been at a foster home with a family and their Greyhounds learning about the off-track world.  Things like stairs, glass doors, furniture, etc. were all new to him.

In those first months we learned that he loved walks, but loved even more going up to the baseball field at a high school near us and running.  We could close all of the gates around the field, take off his leash and collar and he would run full tilt.  It was great to see him run; he would run counter clockwise in a circle for several laps and then quickly tire out.  It was almost like owning a thoroughbred horse – it even sounded like a horse race when he ran!

Now that Cash is 8 years old he has already been slowing down and while he still loves his walks, the last time we took him to the baseball field he just wandered around and peed on the fence.  Last week however, Cash injured himself badly enough that we may never see him run like he used to again.

Thursday night Cash came in from the backyard with a limp.  Upon closer examination I could tell that one of his back left toes was not angled the way that it should be and was also bleeding.  We taped him up, gave him some pain medication and then took him to the vet the next day.  (The absolute chaos that was me taking the injured dog and two kids to the vets – which took an hour and a half – is an amusing tale for another day.)

Long story short, Cash dislocated the end of one of his toes in what the vet seems to think was an incident involving Cash getting his toenail caught in our deck.  The options are either to have a surgeon attempt to stabilize the toe, or to amputate the toe.  This is a weight-bearing toe on his foot, so the vet was hesitant to recommend amputation, but after reviewing Cash’s case the surgeon recommended amputation – which has a much shorter recovery time.  And so on Friday we will send Cash off to surgery and say goodbye to one of his toes.   Here’s hoping that the poor boy will be able to recover quickly and walk better soon.

Cash has always had lovely running dreams where he barks, moves his legs rapidly and whips his tail around.  I’ll be sad if he won’t be able to run around like in his racing days, but I’m glad that he will always be able to dream of winning all those races. (He did actually win 10% of his races – not bad!)

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