Ellie Belly

I'm really worried about our bionic doggy Ellie. She'll be 11 next month, which scares me just by itself. We took her to the vet last night because she's been favoring her back left leg for a week or 2 now and it doesn't seem to be getting better.

Both of Ellie's hips are bothering her, but it's just from old age. Margot thinks the problem is in her knee. She feels an old injury in there (from before Ellie lived with us) While she was feeling around the knee, we could really tell it bothers her. But then she moved further down the leg, below the actual joint, and Ellie yipped and snapped. Major big pain. We're hoping it's just a knee injury from acting like a nut in the yard and Ellie had finally just had enough examination. We're giving her more pain pills and trying to keep her quiet. If it doesn't get better, it'll be time for an x-ray to see if she either ripped her ACL or, worse case scenario...has bone cancer. It scared the bejeezes out of Margot that the big reaction came when she wasn't anywhere near the joint, but we're going to play this out conservatively for now.