Just over a week ago when Beth and Charlie were out for the early morning walk, Charlie was playing with his dog friends, Chica and Bella. They were outside of Chica’s owner’s condo in Villas de Mexico in Campestre and suddenly all three took off around the building. The owners all went to look for them and Chica and Bella were found on the other side of the building, but Charlie was gone. Everyone went search for him in Villas de Mexico and then to the construction site, but he was nowhere to be found.  Beth got a call that Gary, Chica’s owner had found him in the underground parking area at Villas de Mexico curled up and unable to walk.

Beth’s guess was that Charlie had seen a cat and taken off and jumped or fell down the stairs injuring his paws and scraping his chin. She called Andres de la Garza, the vet at Alpha Dog on WhatsApp, knowing that they had young children and would be up early and arranged to take Charlie in at 10:30 that morning. Charlie was very stoic sitting quietly on the couch unable or unwilling to get up but not showing much pain.

When we arrived, Dr. Andres took us into the examination room. He gave Charlie an examination and weighed him. He gave Charlie a shot of pain killer to help him relax. He checked Charlie further and guessed that he probably had broken some of the bones in his right paw. He called the radiologist, who came with a portable x-ray and scanned both his paws and the right let all the way up to the shoulder. The bad news was that he had two broken bones in his right paw. The good news was that they appeared to be clean breaks that would not require surgery. The bone broken in his left paw was the outside finger that is not used in walking. He forwarded the x-rays to a specialist for a second opinion on the need for surgery. He confirmed that as long as the paw was immobilized that he probably would not need surgery.