I'll Never Know

When I got up Thanksgiving morning, I was excited because this year, although we wanted to have dinner here, we'd been invited to my son's.  They bought their home in September so he and his wife wanted to have everyone over there.  The Prez and I were bringing a few things to help out.  We've been deep frying our turkey for years now and our son had asked if we could pack up the fryer and cook the bird at their house.  I made stuffing, turnips, pumpkin pie, apple crisp and brought along some of our famous fresh frozen corn (that we did in the summer), biscuits and cranberry sauce.

Anyway after I drank my morning coffee, I put on my yard jacket and pants right over my jammies and headed outside to get my early morning kisses from Moon and Copper and walk the gravel road.  As usual Copper was exuberant.  But something was wrong...seriously wrong...with Moon.  She couldn't hold her head erect.  Her ears remained lowered against her head.  When our eyes met, I could see that she was in pain.  She was hobbling, holding her head tipped to one side.  My first thought was that she had had a stroke and was partially paralyzed.  Seeing her like that was heartbreaking.

What made it worse was that as I approached her, rather than coming towards me, she backed away as if she was afraid of me!  What the hell had happened to my baby girl?  My mind began to reel.  Did Copper go after her?  But that couldn't be, I thought.  They've been together so many years and as I tried to pet her, he came over and forced his way between Moon and I.  It was as if he didn't want me to hurt her.  Then I wondered if she tangled with something during the night...a raccoon perhaps.  My builder told us that there are Fisher Cats around these woods.  I wondered about that too.  Then I wondered if someone had grabbed her through the fence and we hadn't heard it.  I thought that perhaps her collar got caught on something either her crate or the fence and that she tugged to hard to get free that she hurt herself. 

Once I was finally able to get close enough to Moon, I fell to my knees and let her make the first move.  Her tail was not wagging.  Reaching out I gently touched her back and let my hand slide across her spine.  One hand on each hip and slowly down her legs.  Then I placed my hand on her left shoulder and once again down her front leg.  It was when I touched her right shoulder that she screamed out in pain.  Gently I took hold of her collar to draw her near.  Again, she let out a shriek.  I couldn't touch her head or ear without her crying.  After I got her into her crate and turned to walk away, I burst into tears and prayed.

to be continued...