Camping in December

I’m camping on the family room floor for the third night in a row. I have a snoring Boston Terrier curled up on one side of me and a Chesapeake bay retriever wearing an Elizabethan collar sprawled on his pillow on the other. Both dogs are wondering why the hell we are not upstairs in our comfy beds.

The chessie’s right hind leg is bandaged from his paw to his groin – beneath the bandage is a new bionic knee. He is drugged to his eyeballs and has forgotten all about the nasty surgery and the unflattering shave he got last Thursday. He’s forgotten about his very athletic jump to catch his frisbee and the three weeks he spent hobbling around on three legs while we determined if he was just sprained or destined for the poor house. He is only wondering why there is a baby gate barring him from climbing the stairs and a babysitter barring him from having any fun whatsoever.

Chester, the chessie, has a hard time catching a break. Where our bank account gets a workout at least once a year and our vet scores a winter vacation, Chester gets xrayed, scanned and surgery-ed on the regular. He is a medical marvel, a wonder dog and now a bionic one. But he’s worth it.

Our calendar is generally fairly full, I hadn’t pencilled time for the dog to blow his knee. It has proved a bit of a challenge trying to accommodate everything that has come with that. I had to choreograph his surgery between events – time it perfectly so his cone would come off before our Christmas tree had to be put up and decorated, and occur after our daughter’s weekend wedding adventure in Vancouver. It was a bit of a challenge, but here we are – on the road to recovery and camped on the family room floor.

I’m not complaining, the accommodation could be worse. We’re dry, warm and reasonably cushioned. We are curled up like a pampered wolf pack. We are used to hanging out together – we are three amigos. I will chalk this up to another bonding experience. By this time next month all but one of us will have forgotten all about this camping adventure, another of us will be walking on all fours and the other one will be snoring in her own bed. For now, I will blog about dogs and schedule Christmas between vet appointments and rehabilitation walks. Camping in December can be kind of fun if you’re doing it with friends.