Ouch

Went for a ride this morning with Gretchen.

It was bright and clear, but a little on the chilly side. Each time we stopped for a drink, I had to breath on my fingers to warm them up.

Despite the chill, the ride was just dandy.

Until Gretchen cut herself.

At the top of a climb I had stopped to catch my breath.  As I watched the glimmering spiderwebs on the sides of  a few trees Gretchen, not needing the break, took off down another trail in pursuit of happy scents. When she came back, I noticed she was bleeding on your right hind paw.

No big deal. She frequently cuts herself running all over our yard, but I decided to take a look just to be sure.

“Wow! That’s nasty!” I said out loud.

She didn’t seem to notice and didn’t mind me poking around at it. Being about two miles from the car, I started a slow roll in that direction looking back at her to see how she was doing. When she took off after another scent without any consideration for her wound, I knew the only thing to do was head straight back to the car and deal with it there.

At the car I wrapped it with my arm warmer, headed home, then off to the vet.

Got her back this afternoon all stitched up.

Everything went well. The two biggest concerns are her tearing the stitches and infection. Running two miles with an open flap of skin on your paw collects quite a lot of crap. I’ll have to do something better for situations like that in the future.

For now she’s restricted to the kitchen (at least she’ll get me sleeping with her there tonight) and very little exercise for the next two weeks.

– b