A couple of days ago Kane, our 13 year-old Border Collie, had a tumble in the garden - basically his back legs just gave out. He picked himself up and after looking a little subdued for an hour or so he's been his usual self.
Obviously this concerned both myself and my wife somewhat and we made an appointment to take him to the vet this morning to be checked over. Despite the fact that Kane's been as active as ever since the fall, as we walked into the surgery with him I found that I was extremely nervous.
It turned out that he's got a degree of osteo-arthritis, which the vet described as normal wear-and-tear. Other than that he's in pretty good shape, so he's been prescribed anti-inflammatories which should help a lot.
To put it mildly, I was relieved at this diagnosis. To you he might be "just a dog", but to us he's family !