Day 2826

Dash is getting older. He doesn't always lift his leg when he pees anymore and often ends up peeing on the front leg with the injured dewclaw. After this happened again for the umpteenth time, I thought I'd try to clean the leg with a damp cloth to prevent him from licking it. This was a mistake. When I was cleaning the leg, he jerked away from me, causing the broken dewclaw to start bleeding again. He wouldn't stay still so I could bandage the area and immediately ran to the bedroom and started rolling on the white bed comforter. I managed to put the cone on his head so he wouldn't try to bite me and then gently dabbed the area with a gauze pad soaked in saline solution. Luckily, Dash's blood clots fairly quickly. I still can't manage to wrap an ace bandage around the area, but the bleeding has stopped and if I leave the cone on so he can't pick at things, maybe we'll be back to normal in the morning. This wound is having a tough time healing, but I don't know what to do. The vet specifically said not to leave the area bandaged too long. I just wish Dash would leave it alone.

It's two hours later now. I was wrong again. We just got back from the emergency vet. While I was writing the first paragraph, Dash started bleeding again. He had gone to sleep in the bedroom and when he woke up I noticed that there was a puddle of blood on the carpet. He hadn't been licking the wound because he was wearing the cone. Somehow he had spontaneously started bleeding again while he was sleeping. Janet and I tried without much success to create a makeshift bandage so he wouldn't bleed all over the car again and then it was off to the emergency vet. They're getting to know Dash pretty well at the emergency vet. This was the third time we've had to take him there this summer.

The vet said she didn't think Dash needed stitches. She was a little worried that the dewclaw wound hadn't healed properly after ten day and gave us more antibiotics and some pain pills. I wish we could just leave this new bandage on, but it has to come off after 24 hours just like the initial bandage. We're kind of back where we started. I don't look forward to keeping Dash calm and living with the cone for at least another week. Dash is a great dog, but he isn't a very good patient. Anything out of the ordinary freaks him out.

Before this evening's dog crisis, I had started watching the new Ken Burns series about the Vietnam War. The documentary was very good. I was surprised at how much I had already forgotten about this time in history. It's a shame that the show comes on right when I start writing the blog every night. I'll have to find some other way to watch the rest of it. I had a low draft number when I was in college during the late 60's and probably would have been drafted if I hadn't fallen while rock climbing in Colorado one summer and been declared 4F. My knees are still a mess after all these years, but that's one injury that I don't regret.

Dash is finally calm and is sleeping again. The emergency vet did a really good job of bandaging him up. I need to go buy some styptic powder and ace bandages in the morning. There's got to be a better way of dealing with emergencies like these. Ironically, we had tons of bandages left over from Janet's surgery, but none of them were the right size and we couldn't stop the bleeding anyway. No matter how prepared you think you are, you really can't plan for everything.

Rhett is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day