We’re all a bit fed up at the moment. Uschi has been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in the knee joint in her front left leg.  We originally thought she had pulled her shoulder muscle, but investigations showed the osteoarthritis in her knee.

Walks from now on are short and lead only.  We’re very upset, she loves running off-lead and we love taking her for walks in all sorts of places.  It feels very unfair but we’ll continue to do our best for her and hope that she continues to enjoy life despite the restrictions.

We hardly recognise her without the collar!

She loves her walks even more with it gone. Here she is this morning on our walk.

Resting in a sunny spot at home after her walk.

She’s enjoying the sun in the garden this morning.

Look away now if you don’t want to see her gory back with the rubber drain tubes poking out.

We just hope that this will sort things out for Uschi and she can go back to being the wonderful happy doggie that she is trying to be!

Enough was enough, Stephen has registered Uschi at a new vets today. He gave her a look and explained in much more detail about the accumulation of fluid. It seems that she needs it drained either by needle, or by operating again and putting in a drain.

We are seeing how it goes today, but she will probably need another operation tomorrow.

We’re really upset about it all because we just wanted the best for Uschi and we really feel let down by the first vet.

We did take her to the vet about the swelling but he said not to worry unless the wound became angry and red. We rang them the first time it split, but as the stitches were still in place, he said that it was OK. It’s a worry for us though!

Poor Uschi is really frustrated by her head collar. Although when we take her for a walk we take if off because she’s too occupied with sniffing around to bother her wound.

It’s a lovely sunny morning this morning, Uschi looks like she has a halo She is a little angel of course.

Update: she had the stitches taken out. The vet said the build up of fluid was very unusual, but that the lab test of the lump showed that there were a lot of inflammatory cells in the tissue surrounding the lump. We’re giving her some anti-inflammatories to hopefully bring down the swelling. She can have her collar off during supervision and she had it off briefly but licked and licked the wound, so it had to go back on again.

She can go out for walks now though, so we take her bucket off for walks as she’s preoccupied with sniffing stuff and isn’t interested in her wound.

The results of her lump have come back today. It was a “cystic granulation” with some inflammatory cells – so nothing essentially malicious . All the cells were removed including the inflammatory cells, which is good news for her recovery. Why the lump started in the first place they aren’t so sure, it could be a bite or a knock. I would think it is likely to have been a knock, she can be very lively and crashes around!

The vet said that she might be off food – not a chance, Uschi is very hungry! It’s good to see how strong she is though, she’s taken it all in her stride (apart from the head collar).

Here she is in her collar, not looking too impressed.

And here is her shaved back with all the stitches. She keeps trying to lick the wound, so the collar has to stay on unfortunately. She’s also not allowed any walks until the stitches are out, so we’re in for a few days of a manic weim!

She is pretty tired but still happy enough.

She sees the vet again tomorrow, but her leg is still very swollen, probably about twice the normal size.

Here she is getting spoilt, snuggled into a sleeping bag waiting for her dad to come back and give her a cuddle.

Update: Uschi has been to the vets. She has a temperature and her glands are a little swollen. She’s been given antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory and we will be taking her back tomorrow to have another check on her temperature. Poor baby!

Here she is earlier today enjoying the sunshine in the doorway…

and watching goings on while Stephen was doing the gardening…

and showing you her leg where they took a blood sample from.