"There's not a lot to do today," Tami said. "It's been slow here for a week or two; winter, I guess." I glanced out the window at the cold, cheerless landscape and silently agreed with her.

I was grateful for the quiet day. Derek and I were in Hardin to take care of Mark Francis' veterinary hospital while he and his wife took a well-deserved week off in Mexico. One of the big problems that rural, solo practitioner veterinarians face is having to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You simply never get a break.

I'd noticed all the symptoms of burnout in Mark last fall and when I asked him when he'd had a vacation last he said with frustration it had been five years or more since he'd had a real break. He went on to say that he had been actively looking for an associate or partner for several years to no avail.

He was exhausted and in need of some real time off. I offered to watch his practice for a few days or a week if he'd take his wife and go somewhere where no one knew them and the cell phones don't work.

Now that I was actually at his clinic and not familiar with it or his employees I figured it was just as well that things were not really hopping.

"A young dog was brought in over the weekend, a stray. She looks like she's got a dislocated hip. If you want to see if you can repair that and spay her, the woman who does rescue work will take her to Billings so she can be adopted," Tami, Mark's technician, suggested. "Our clinic acts as the local shelter, so we get a lot of animals in. We try to adopt them out as soon as we can get them spayed or neutered. If they're hurt we fix them if we can or put them down. This one is a really sweet puppy. I hope you can fix her leg."

She led the medium-sized, blue merle dog out of the kennel. The dog wagged most of her body in response to our physical exam.

"We should call her Speckle", said Tami, grinning and indicating the pup's coloring. "Let's call her Sparkle," I said. "It goes along with her nature!"

Assessing her teeth, we decided she was about 7 months old. Sparkle's right hind leg could bear some weight but was obviously not normal, appearing as if the head of the femur was out of the socket. Often this can be reduced with traction and torsion on the leg to force the femoral head back into place. Then the leg is taped to the dog's body for a period of time so the injury can heal.

"Let's anesthetize her and radiograph her hind legs and pelvis; that way we can see for sure what's going on with her hip. Then we'll spay her and after that reduce the hip and get her on her way," I suggested.

Tami, had the puppy under anesthesia and ready for the radiographs a few minutes later. The first film showed that the sweet little merle puppy didn't have a dislocated hip after all. She had a nearly healed displaced mid body fracture of her femur. Her pelvis was healing from fractures, too. My eyes stung with sympathetic tears as I realized this young dog had survived, probably mostly on her own, with injuries that can easily cause death from the shock and pain alone.

She was very thin and had been crawling with fleas. The lack of care in her life was appallingly obvious. Two more films were done to clarify the extent of her injuries and confirm the damage the first had shown.

"Well, we can still spay her, it's too late to fix that leg," I said, thinking that if she was spayed at least this tough little dog might have a chance at a good and safe home.

Tami shook her head. "With those injuries, the rescue lady won't take her. She'll be concerned that there's too much risk that this dog will have problems in the future. It's hard enough to find homes for the healthy ones. Ones like this one…" She trailed off her head still negatively shaking, gently and sadly caressing the puppy's unconscious head..

"Let's call the rescue lady and see before we just put this puppy down." I decided. "Sparkle's a survivor and very sweet; I think she deserves a chance."

Tami tried to contact the woman, but the phone was busy. "We'll just spay her," I said. "She's under anesthesia now, I don't want to wait any longer. We'll deal with the rescue lady later."

The little dog was prepared for her spay, the surgery was uneventful and she recovered quickly. Her good spirits and delightful nature were back in force as soon as the anesthesia wore off. Wagging her tail from her spot on the floor, she seemed the picture of contentment unaware that her life was now hanging in the balance: the rescue lady had just told us she would not take a crippled dog.

My heart sank. Our lives are busy now with travel plans over the next two months that will have us out of the country for several weeks. Another foster dog was almost more than I could contemplate adding to our already full household. But, weighing that against how badly my soul would be etched if I put this happy puppy to death made the decision easy.

I looked at Derek as I told him the dilemma. He just rolled his eyes and grinned. Sparkle came home with us and will eventually make someone a delightful companion.