There are few scarier sounds than that of your dog’s head colliding with a blunt object. Barrett seems to have these collisions all the time. She’ll run headfirst into the wall while chasing Remy, and then assuage my panic by bouncing up and running along as if nothing happened. It seems, however, that Remy’s skull doesn’t have the same elastic properties.

I was sitting on the couch on Monday night when Remy dropped a saliva-soaked plush toy on my lap. Without much thought, I flung the toy across the room, more to get the cool dampness off my lap than to appease Remy’s desire to fetch. As the toy arced through the air, Remy pivoted on her hind legs, never taking her eyes off the soggy projectile. Unfortunately, the path of her face intersected with the corner of the coffee table.

Remy is usually quite skilled at avoiding obstacles in her quest to retrieve. I’ve cringed as she chased a Frisbee with her eyes skyward, veering at the last second to avoid the trunk of an oak tree. She must have miscalculated something this time though, as her head crashed into the table with a sound that made me leap off the couch. I immediately called her over and wrapped my left arm around her chest, trying to inspect her cranium for any damage. But all she wanted to do was get the toy.

She wriggled out of my grasp for long enough to retrieve her quarry, but she immediately returned to me with a distressed look in her eyes. Quickly, she had forgotten the toy she was chasing and was instead climbing into my lap. She settled with her chest across my thighs and her back feet still on the floor. I think it must have hit her suddenly that something didn’t feel right and that she needed her dad for some comfort.

As a puppy, Remy went through several bouts of stomach illness. At one point, she refused to eat, and anything that went in quickly came back out one side or the other. After several rapid trips up and down the stairs to let her out in the middle of the night, I climbed into Remy’s favorite overstuffed chair, and spent the night with her curled up in my lap. Ever since then, it has seemed like she comes to me for comfort when she’s not feeling right.

When she dropped the toy and slunk back to my lap, Remy had a look that resembles a cartoon character that was seeing stars. Despite her earlier vigor to retrieve her toy, she acted like she was unable to climb the 18 inches of elevation to get on the couch with me. As she lay with her head on my knee, I palpated her cranium like I was Charlie Sheen in Men at Work pretending to be a phrenologist. I didn’t find any bumps or tenderness, and she didn’t show any of the symptoms listed by Jen’s quick Internet search for canine concussions.

Concussions can be serious in dogs, especially since they can’t communicate any symptoms to you. We watched her closely for the rest of the night and next morning, but she ate and drank normally, and didn’t act disoriented.

The one lasting after effect seemed to be a little pain in her jaw, because every time she yawned, she shook her head afterward. She looked less like the victim of a head injury and more like someone with a hangover, shaking off the effects of a long night. Happily, she’s back to normal, pestering me with that same soggy toy.