Poor Pitiful Puppy

Hank had quite an adventure last night. Ed and I attended the annual Legacy Outfitters' date night/Christmas banquet, and because the weather was bitterly cold and sleeting we took the dogs to Mom and Dad's house. We didn't get back to pick them up until about 9:15, and when we got out of the car we heard quite a commotion in the backyard - dogs barking and growling, raccoon screaming - quite a mess. Ed ran down there to see what was going on and helped Dad and Bryan pull the dogs off of the raccoon.

We got all of the dogs inside and were getting ready to go home when we realized that Hank was injured. He had a flap of skin hanging off of his chest, leaving a nasty open wound. He wasn't bleeding, but it definitely needed medical attention. We checked Brinks (my parents' dog) and Sam out and made sure they weren't injured, and thankfully they were both okay. My sister was kind enough to bring Sam and Bryan home while Ed and I headed to the emergency vet clinic. I'm very grateful that Bryan is old enough to stay home by himself! It was so nice to just tell him "go home, take a shower, go to bed, we'll be home later" and not have to worry about him.

At the vet clinic we saw a great doctor, Dr. Foster, who used to be our vet at the clinic we've been going to for years. He checked Hank out and told us what needed to be done - sedation, stitches, meds, etc - and gave us an estimated cost. Not exactly affordable, but it could have been a lot worse.

Hank is "grounded" for the next week to ten days. He has to be constantly supervised, on a leash when he's outside, can't run and play or do the usually doggy things. He is our active, always outside, just gotta' chase something dog, so it's gonna' be a rough week. He is also sporting a spiffy plastic lampshade....


Dr. Foster told us to get some large children's t-shirts for Hank to wear so that he can't scratch at his stitches. I found an old shirt of mine (it's way too big for him, but it's working for now) and relieved him of the lampshade. He was just too, too pitiful with it on. If he starts to lick at his wound he'll have to wear the lampshade, but I'm hoping the shirt will do the trick....


My poor baby! Here's a pic of the wound (I'll make it smaller for those of you who are squeamish). And just for the record, he's only wearing the choke collar because we couldn't attach his leash to his regular collar because of the e-collar. I'm not a fan of choke collars.

I'm really hoping he behaves himself this next week. The sooner this heals the sooner life can get back to normal. Oh, wait. We have a teenager in the house. Our life will never be normal again! LOL!!!!