OneAndOneIs2

is concussed.

Yes, the puppy was playing a bit too hard yesterday and banged her head.

In fact, she did that a few times. Typical puppy behaviour, really.

She's been quiet most of the week because of a growth spurt (her legs are getting ludicrously long) and she started to perk up over the weekend. So we didn't think all that much of it when she wouldn't settled down, but kept circling the rooms - she'd done that quite a lot over the last couple days.

Doing silly walks and bumping into things wasn't exactly our of character, either. Even when she didn't finish eating the offcuts of gammon in her dinner, we weren't that perturbed - collies are famous for not needing much food.

But as I was watching her trot around, I felt a sudden twinge of unease that made me look closer. Something subtle was wrong, like one mistuned instrument in an orchestra - hard to pin down, but you're sure it's there.

I called her over, but she didn't react. I clapped, I whistled, I snapped my fingers - all thins she normally responds to, all went utterly unnoticed. She just kept pacing around the rooms. She went into the kitchen, out of sight, then came back and I finally put my finger on the problem - she was holding her head at just slightly the wrong angle. She wasn't looking ahead, she was looking vaguely down. Hence why she was bumping into things.

She still wouldn't respond to calls, so I picked her up when she went past and spoke very calmly to her. She was fine for a few moments, then started clawing vigorously at me with her front paws, trying to get away. I kept hold of her until she stopped, the looked closely at her again. Her gaze wasn't quite right, she wasn't focussing on me. And then a drop of saliva came out of her mouth, and that wasn't normal for her either.

Everyone was looking at her now and vaguely aware that maybe she wasn't quite right, and when she started to shake and drool quite significantly, all doubt vanished - this wasn't a hyper puppy unable to sit still, this was a dog in the throes of a minor seizure. She alternated between laying quietly in our arms to struggling manically with her front paws, she didn't respond to any sounds we made (although a biscuit waved under the nose was promptly scarfed down in a second)

If she had been whimpering or in any visible distress, we might have picked it up sooner, but she never made a sound and her tail never dropped below its customary half-mast "I'm fine" position. And her wandering around and scrambling into little spaces isn't really too out of character - she's a collie/husky puppy.

So off we went to the vet, and by the time we were there she was visibly not right - struggling often, salivating far too much, and still seemingly unable to find us even when we were holding onto her.

The vet gave her a few pokes & prods, asked if there was any chance she might have eaten any marijuana, and then agreed that this was almost certainly concussion. The drooling was due to nausea, the struggling wasn't actually struggling - her violent front leg movements were totally involuntary - and she was generically dazed and confused. She needed to be given nausea medication to feel better, anti-inflammatories to take down the swelling in her brain, and would then be sedated or possibly even anaesthetised.

We left her at the vet and drove to a very empty-seeming home. After an hour or so, we got a phone call. After being given the anti-inflammatory and clearing up the nausea, Cally had made a near-full recovery: She had pestered them to take her for a walk and then chewed up her bedding. They weren't going to bother sedating her, just keep her in overnight for observation. Her blood tests had revealed nothing out of the ordinary for a puppy who hadn't been able to eat her dinner.

This morning, we got a text telling us she was doing fine and can probably be collected in the early afternoon.

It's not too surprising, really - if every active puppy who banged its head didn't reach adulthood, there would be very few sheepdogs in the world.

But I'll never like having to drive a dog to the vet.