It's a Wrap

Dew claws have got to be right up there with appendixes (appendices?). What good do they do? All they seem to do is cause pain and trouble.

Dieter found out the hard way about those pesky dew claws. Last Sunday evening he was romping in the yard after his "baby" when I noticed he was lying down. Not a collapsed lying down, but a "I'm settin' here for a spell and catching my breath" lying down. Much out of character for Mr. Activity. He joined me on the deck and he seemed to be favoring his right foot. He came over and put his paw on my arm. Blood. "Lloyd, come quick. Our son is injured."

We called the ER vet who said to just watch the torn dew claw. We'd already applied hydrogen peroxide and the bleeding had stopped. We checked in with our Warrenville Grove vet on Monday and they said the same: monitor it. He'd injured a dew claw a year or so ago and it healed up real well, but by midweek he still was licking at it and it looked like the claw was sticking out sideways, so off the the vet we went.

Poor Dieter. Turns out that wasn't the claw we saw. It was a little piece of bone. They numbed his foot up and removed the offending parts, wrapped his foot up, and gave him an Elizabethan collar. AKA, cone of shame, E Collar, and other unprintable dog terms for the thing.

His Master's Voice?

Daffodil?

Does this make my head look big?

He's still bumping into things. He tries to get in the back door, gets stuck on the door, and waits for one of his human minions to free him. It's gotta be frustrating. He wants to play and romp, but you try picking up a toy while you're wearing a lampshade. He also says: "The humans think they're so funny. Mom said the cone made me look like a daffodil and dad said I looked like a running cowbell when I was trying to play outside. Oh, and mom had to post all sorts of pictures of me in this condition on Facebook and say I looked like a Gramophone."

Yesterday morning he somehow figured out that by bending the cone just right he could get to the bandage. I found the bandage and gauze lying in the family room. Since the vet said it's important to keep it dry, and since the weather isn't cooperating by being dry, we rebandaged the injury again.

He also discovered that he could ram his humans with his cone--right into our calves. I am now sporting little semi-circular bruises from the cone assaults.

The vet told us that when we're around him to monitor him, we can take off the cone. But he immediately goes to the bandage, so back on with the collar.

We all hope by weekend's end the foot will be good enough so that we can free Dieter from his plastic prison.