Moose came down the stairs on Tuesday morning using three legs. He carried the right front paw a few inches off the floor, the way a Victorian invalid might hold a handkerchief. At the bottom he stopped, looked up at me, and sighed once.
Moose is nine, seventy pounds, and the owner of the most expressive eyebrows on our block. He once ate a whole stick of butter, wrapper included. So when he hopped to the back door with one paw dangling, I did what any reasonable person does at 6:40 in the morning. I panicked and called the vet.
Four hundred and twelve dollars later
Our vet squeezed him in at 11:20. She worked a thumb along each toe and flexed the wrist. Moose allowed all of it with the patience of a dog who can hear a treat jar two rooms away.
Nothing was swollen. He yelped once when she lifted the paw, then stood up on all four legs when the tech opened the jar and took his biscuit politely. The face he gave me on the way out was not remorse. It was a request. That look is about reading you, not confessing.
The x-rays came back clean. Soft tissue strain, probably. Rest, an anti-inflammatory, no stairs for a week, and pills the size of my thumb. Four hundred and twelve dollars for a diagnosis that ended in probably.
He committed to the rest cure
By Wednesday Moose had moved to the big cushion on the couch, the one he is technically not allowed on. The stairs were out of the question. His kibble arrived by hand, a handful at a time, and every pill came wrapped in a cube of cheddar because that is the only way he will take anything that is not butter.
He was brave about it. He lifted the paw when I walked past. He lifted it when the mail came. He lifted it when I asked if he wanted to go outside, then looked at the back door like the door and I had both let him down. Leave it is the one command he takes seriously, mostly because it comes with a payment.
Thursday, 5:15 p.m., one squirrel
A squirrel lives in the oak by the fence and treats our yard like a gym. Moose has chased him for six years and never come close.
I was at the kitchen window with the pill bottle when the squirrel came down the trunk. Moose left the couch, crossed eleven feet of hardwood, hit the dog door at speed, and covered the whole yard in a flat sprint with all four feet in working order. No hitch. No hop. He looked like a dog in a commercial for dog food.
He missed the squirrel, as always, and trotted back toward the steps. Halfway there he noticed me watching, and the right paw came off the ground like a drawbridge.
The limp requires an audience
We ran tests. I am not proud of it, but we ran tests.
From the doorway, where he could not see me: a normal walk to the water bowl. From the couch, where he could: three legs and a small theatrical sigh. Eye contact restored mid-trot: the paw went up so fast he nearly tipped over.
On Friday the limp switched to the left side. I asked him about that. He wagged.
What the vet said
She was not surprised. Dogs do not plan fraud, she said, but they learn fast which behaviors bring cheese and company. A dog who is genuinely sore guards the leg, and when guarding earns a couch cushion, the guard can outlast the soreness. Six days of cheddar will teach anyone a habit.
The anti-inflammatory course ended last week. The cheese did not.
He still lifts the paw at the bottom of the stairs some evenings, and I still carry him up, seventy pounds of warm dog and a small grunt on every step. He is not lying to me. He is asking, in the one language that has never failed him in this house, and the answer is yes. It was always going to be yes.