The Thorn Birds

Last Thursday, the day Halo left, we got back from saying good bye to her after our walk and Leeloo came into the house with a cut on her right rear foot. More specifically a puncture and a slice. It may be the same thing Halo had cut herself on a couple weeks earlier, I've looked everywhere in the yard but just cannot find the culprit. The slice had a flap on it so I cut it off because the skin was drying and it was catching on things. You can see the triangle shaped hole in her toe. Problem with foot injuries like this is that they bleed and bleed and it's hard to stop them because everytime the dog puts its foot down it forces blood through the foot. Not hard to guess why it will keep bleeding. I went through bandaids and tape and eventually managed to get it to the point where it was sealed enough that it stopped actively bleeding. She was lame for a couple days but only if she had to walk on gravel so we stuck to grass and sand for the most part ensuring of course that the cut did not get filled with dirt.

So what does Miss Legs Leeloo do? Why she gets something else jammed into her left front foot. This time it was a thorn she picked up racing through the grass with Raimi. We were out on the boardwalk heading back to the truck and they wanted one last romp through the grass. After a few minutes she returned to me and stood with her paw up looking forlorn. I checked but couldn't immediately see why she was lame and she was fidgeting something awful. I made her stand so I could take a really close look at her toes and there it was, a little piece of grass or something stuck to her pad. I figured it was a little thorn that was jammed in the ridges of her pad because it's coarse.

A moment while I interject - when I left Calgary my friend Phil got me a going away gift. Now, if you knew Phil you'd know that he only really likes to give practical gifts, things like flashlights, winter coats, tool sets, mattress heater pads ... things of this nature. All appreciated and all very thoughtful. So what does he come up with for my trip across Canada with 4 dogs and 3 cats? Why an Official AKC Approved Pet First Aid Kit of course! It's incredibly thoughtful and I hoped I'd never need it. So I keep it with me at all times when I'm walking the dogs because we are often deep in the woods or way out on a beach somewhere. It's in my back pack which holds water for me and the dogs, a chocolate bar(in case of low blood sugar miles from a store), dog treats, three leads, scarf, gloves, hat, and of course camera. See? Isn't it marvelous? So since I knew I couldn't pull out the thorn with my fingers I figured any first aid kit worth its salt must have tweezers. So I whipped out the kit, rifled through and voila! Tweezers. It took some doing but eventually I got hold of that slippery little sucker and pulled it out. Except it was not what I expected. It was much much larger. It's almost a half an inch long! No wonder Leeloo was lame. It was hard to get hold of too because the very tip that had broken off only left about a millimetre sticking out of her pad. It was like the iceberg of thorns.

In my first aid kit what else do you suppose they include? Why a specimen case of course. So I popped it in there for future reference photo taking, packed it all up, checked Leeloo's foot for blood(just a drop) and we headed on our way. No more lameness and Phil's thoughtful gift saves the day!