My tale begins on Tuesday, October 6, of 2009--Ma and Pa's wedding anniversary. I was four months old, forty pounds of wiggly muscle, and, even at such a young impressionable age, already totally engrossed in my "Terror Puppy" mode (I've said it before and I'll say it again...despite being a well mannered and respectful dog now, I was an absolute nightmare growing up).
Anyway, Ma and Pa, because it was their anniversary, had decided to go out for dinner thus leaving Sister and me alone together for a substantial amount of time. First, however, they laid down the law: Sister was in charge and both she and I (they really meant just me) were to be on our very best behavior. Above all, we were to try to get along. Everyone involved knew that this was an extremely tall order. Sister and I, after all, didn't have the best track record up to that point. Our usual encounters first involved me jumping on her, then her yelling, then I'd start biting, and eventually I'd end up locked in my crate in a time out while Sister nursed her hurt feelings. Still, despite past experiences and better judgement, Ma and Pa waved goodbye and sped away in their car.
The peace lasted for about twenty minutes--just long enough for Sister to eat her dinner. Then I started acting up; first by jumping on her and then biting her hands, my sharp pin-like puppy teeth scratching at her flesh (I was always careful never to draw blood). In hindsight, Sister tried her best to cope with me and my bad attitude. While I misbehaved, she tried getting me to play with one of my toys, to chew on one of my numerous bones, or practice my sits and downs. When that failed, she moved on to massaging my neck in hopes of calming me down (which, on average, worked, but only for a few minutes). Well, I was in rare form that night--nothing worked.
Frustrated and exhausted from a half hour of struggling, Sister finally gave up trying to exorcise the savage beast from within me and decided that I needed a time out in my crate. Hooking me by the collar, Sister tried to lead me out of the living room and down the hall into our parent's bedroom where my crate was housed. I, however, had other ideas and proceeded to go into a death roll (you know, like alligators do) with my teeth showing. Eventually, Sister managed to get me up on my four feet and, after hooking me under the chest, started to half pull half carry me out of the living room and into the dining room on the way to my crate (why she didn't take the shorter path of the living room to hallway to bedroom rather than the living room to dining room to kitchen to hallway to bedroom is beyond me). Meanwhile, I, in full tantrum mode, fought her the entire way.
We never made it.
Passing between the dining room and the kitchen, one of the nails on my front right paw got caught in the jam between the two rooms. With a mighty yelp (and I never yelp), Sister and I both stopped in our tracks and looked back to the scene of the accident.
There was blood everywhere: on the floor, on the walls, on Sister, and on me. And right in the middle of the bloodbath was the nail, completely detached from my foot (for those keeping track at home, this was nail incident number one).
Now, for those who are unfamiliar with canine anatomy, the quick is the blood vessel that juts into the nail. If this blood vessel is cut, nicked, or torn (as in what happened with me or if a nail was trimmed too low), it bleeds like crazy. I mean murder scene crazy.
A momentary and unspoken truce occurred between Sister and me while I padded around in the kitchen confused by the blood pouring out of my paw and Sister, trying to keep me in the kitchen so that I wouldn't ruin the rugs, considered her options. Sister knew how this sort of injury always looked a lot worse than it really was, but something needed to be done to stop the bleeding and patch up my paw. I needed to go to the vet. But how? Sister knew she wouldn't be able to get me into her car and to the vet's office without everything being covered in blood. Her answer: call Aunt B. Wasting no time, Aunt B called my vet's office and told them to stay open until I got there, then jumped in her car and raced to my house.
Meanwhile, Sister contemplated how to stop and/or contain the bleeding. First, she tried adding pressure to the wound but, while I wasn't biting her, I certainly wasn't being helpful and kept pulling my foot out of her hand. Next, she thought about trying to tie a tourniquet around my leg, but decided that it was probably a bit of an overreaction. Finally, she decided on wrapping my foot up. But with what? It was then she saw it, a laundry hamper with clean white socks in it. Grabbing a pair of Pa's socks, Sister managed to wrap one around my injured paw and then jammed the paw, along with the sock, into the other (okay, it took four or five attempts before I cooperated enough to allow Sister to do this). Sister didn't know it at the time, but by the time she succeeded in wrapping my paw, the bleeding had stopped.
Then Aunt B arrived and it was time to go to the vet's office. Sister scooped me up (I really didn't like being picked up and carried, but I let Sister do it this time because I was injured) and the three of us piled into Aunt B's car leaving behind a murder scene worth of blood, a number of bloody paper towels on the floor, the television blaring, and every light on in the house. While in the car, Aunt B commented that she hoped our parent's wouldn't come home while we were at the vet's office because they might think that Sister and I were murdered.
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| My First Cast |
Needless to say, it was a long time before Sister and I were left home alone again.
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