Poor Henry

Yesterday afternoon Joey and Henry were playing Henry's favorite game: rough house.  "Rough House" generally involves Henry, his gargantuan CareBear (the one from the Dumpster), and either Joey or I.  Henry was in rare form because we had company, so he was in high spirits and bouncing around like a rabbit - it was pretty cute.  Joey and Henry growling at each other and swiping at each other's paws in a way that would scare my mom for fear of "What if Henry bites him?"

Poor Mom.

Anyways, there they were on the floor, Henry with his front two paws on Joey's knee bouncing and swatting as though his little, furry, freshly-bathed life depended on it.  But suddenly, he let out the most torturous puppy scream I've ever heard and jumped back, limping with his back right leg.

"HENRY!!"  I screamed, "What did you do to him?"  I asked Joey.

"I have no idea what happened...I wasn't even touching his back legs,"  Joey said, going over to our poor puppy and scooping him up gently.  Henry had large eyes - larger than usual - and was very quiet and still.

"We killed him!"  I wailed, trying to decide what one does it one's dog-child has a medical emergency on a weekend.  (They don't treat dogs at the local hospital last I checked.)

The guests and Joey hovered around poor Henry and examined his back right leg.  The muscles were tense and shaking.  I felt decidedly sick.  I will be a basket case when this is my own child!  I thought. (But I am not pregnant.)

"Poor Buddy!" I said loudly.  Joey put down the fluffy puppy and he limped over to the chair and lay down in front of it.  I couldn't bear to have my puppy being in pain, so I went over and picked him up and massaged his right leg.  I could feel what seemed to be an icky muscle cramp so I kept rubbing.  After a few moments, his leg stopped twitching and I set him down on the ground.  He walked over to Joey without so much as a hitch in his gitalong and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Wow...what happened?"  I asked.

"I have absolutely no idea.  Maybe he twisted wrong on his leg while he was bouncing around?"  Joey suggested. "Could have been a cramp, too."

In any case, Henry is fine now.  We took him on a nice walk last evening and he pranced along like the trooper he always is.  (He even got his freshly washed paws into something nice and black so they are now a very dark shade of gray.)

We may be, just maybe, too attached to our puppy.