Poor Joey . . .

Well, after Joey whined through most of the night, he convinced me that he needed to be checked out.  I couldn't find any cuts or swellings after the horses got into the dog yard yesterday, but he refused to get up and walk around last night.  Then around 1 AM he began whining and whining and whining CONTINUALLY!  I brought him food and water and opened the door for him but he wanted none of it.  So obviously he must have been extremely uncomfortable, or probably in pain.  Pitts don't normally indicate pain like "normal" dogs do, so for him to carry on like that all night it made it obvious that something had to be wrong, whether I could see it or not.  So this morning I took him over to LSU to be examined.  They spent about 2 1/2 hours at it!  And they did find that he has a problem, all right, but there's nothing they can do about it directly.  He has a sensitive area along his spine near the bottom, but that could be from having run too much and too fast.

 

But more importantly, he was apparently kicked in the head when Duke and Arthur broke into the dog yard!  No telling if that was done by Duke or by Arthur, but my money would be on Arthur.  When the dogs ran up to the fence and barked at him, he would turn around and back up to the fence looking as if he was going to kick.  So when they were on the SAME side of the fence I'd be willing to bet he was the one who kicked Joey!

 

There was no scratch or swelling on Joey's head when I examined him, but they explained after his exam  there at LSU that they believed his head had been hit because the pupil in his right eye is significantly larger than the left one.   And sure enough . . .

 

This picture was taken with a flash -- you can REALLY see the difference in size by the reflections.

 

Look how much larger that right pupil is.  Poor guy!

 

 

And the poor little guy doesn't want to do a thing - he just wants to lay down and sleep near me.

 

This is the view from the stairs as I came down from the office.

And here he is when we first got home from LSU. 
He didn't even give me time to put the blanket there on the sofa before he climbed up and fell over to sleep!

 

It's certainly good that all he wants to do is sleep at the moment, though, I guess.  They said he needs to be kept quiet.  They suggested he be kept in his crate, but that really isn't necessary -- he doesn't want to move around no matter where he is.  He just wants to sleep, preferably covered up with his blanket.

 

They also gave him pain meds, but I'm going to have to get one of those "pill poppers" before he'll be taking those.  There is no way I can possibly open his mouth far enough to stick them in there with my hand -- his jaws are incredibly strong!  And he managed not to take them even after I mixed canned chicken in his dog food and hid the pills in there.  He either managed to eat around them or else he spit them back out because, when he finished, the entire bowl was shiny and clean but those three pills were laying there all by themselves!

 

He has an appointment at AVS on Tuesday.  If he isn't feeling better by then, they'll be doing x-rays to see what's going on.   And of course if he starts to feel WORSE in the meantime, he'll be going back over to LSU.  I didn't let them do x-rays today because they wanted to keep him over night and anesthetize him to do them and I know that wouldn't be necessary over at AVS.  He's easy to keep still.  Anesthesia is NOT necessary.  Well, I hope he's feeling better by Tuesday and doesn't need them anyway.  Cross your fingers . . .

 

Well, time to go back downstairs and keep him company.   Poor Joe.