I thought I would take some time to write a quick update on Riley's surgery. He was still lame from time to time on his right leg while his left seemed to heal fine. My parents actually watched Riley for me during my finals week which was nice and allowed me to concentrate on studying.

The day of Riley's recheck I took him into the clinic early since I had the surgery done at MSU. That allowed me to help with a surgery in the food animal clinic while I was waiting for his appointment time. By the time it came around, I went to get him out of the kennel I had left him in and he was gone! I found him already knocked out on the x-ray table with the doctors in the room. The first thing the surgeon said to me was, "your dog is a monster!" Immediately I was at a loss for words. Riley is well behaved, loves people, and is never aggressive. He is submissive, but not cage protective so I couldn't imagine him giving them a hard time other than maybe licking everyone to death. Speaking of which...does anyone have a way to get them to stop licking?! Anyways, Before I could get a word in they told me to look at the radiographs. Again, Dr. Giout repeated, "your dog is a monster!" but this time he added, "look at what he did to my pin!" I looked at the radiograph of his right leg and Riley had indeed broken the metal pin in his bone! I have no idea how he did it, but that explains why his right leg did not heal as quickly as his left. They said the bones were both healing fine, but if he started limping at all again on his right leg that they would take the broken pin out and replace it. Other than that things looked great.

So he's his happy self again. My parent's dog, Jack, is a spitz mix and Riley's favorite game is to play pin Jack down. He grabs his scruff and easily throws him to the ground. Guess that means he is feeling fine! Since I'm at home with my parents during break Riley is getting all the play time he could possibly want. He is also becoming quite the farm dog. He loves going to the barn with me, though he is still a little weary of the horses. The cat seems to make great herding practice though! :) We had some areas of 2 foot deep snow and Riley would follow me as best he could, but eventually he would just stop, sit up like a prairie dog, and wait for me to carry him the rest of the way. He is quite the character. I put up some pictures of him in the snow earlier.

I guess that is all for this update, Happy New Year everyone!