Buddy's back was acting up (on & off) for the past month. He seemed to be favoring his neck & right front leg, so he wore the neck brace 24/7. The 2 wks of Rimadyl helped immensely, and so then we thought he was back to normal. But nope, it didn't remain so. Today, he flushed a critter (groundhog?) from under the deck, and he excitedly chased that rodent at high speed into the back 40. Yippee, right? Ten minutes later, he was in agony, yelping in the kitchen. The yelping didn't subside, and he's arching his back in pain, so it's off to the vet we go....

Vet did some manipulations and decided it was a cervical IVDD issue, not leg issue. Acupuncture settled Buddy down, to almost asleep, and his shaking & yelping stopped. Yay. Strange that the biggest reaction to all those 41 acupuncture needle insertions were at the T12/T13 site of his earlier IVDD surgery, not at his neck. So perhaps the old site is still bothering him? Maybe over-compensating for it up front might be transferring his pain up to the neck area? Anyway, acupuncture helped, so we have 2 more acupuncture sessions scheduled, 1 week apart. Blood tests were perfect, so Buddy also got Vetalog injected into his back, to lessen the inflammation. Hope it works.

Buddy is back in the slammer. Caged for the duration, for conservative IVDD treatment. This time we're gonna be nasty & enforce it for 24/7. He's gonna hate me.