Monday, April 28, 2008

lucy in the sky with battle wounds

I have a tale to tell...
  1. LONG VERSION - Back when Lucy was a puppy, we took her to the groomer at Petsmart to get her nails (claws, if you want the technical term) clipped. They were really cool, did it in about 30 seconds, and said that the first one was on the house. We decided to buy a trimmer after that and just do it ourselves instead of spending money to get it done all the time. We've actually done it a few times since then. Never without a little bit of a struggle, of course, but they always seem to be successful nail trimming missions. As of the last week, Lucy's nails have become razor sharp. Just really too long for anyone's liking. So we decided to finally trim them again yesterday. However...the first nail I clipped, I cut a little too short (apparently) because it started bleeding....................a LOT! So I had to refrain from freaking out while holding a 20 pound firecracker. I call her a "firecracker" here because when she gets fiesty and stubborn, it literally takes all of your strength to keep her still. Joe the Genius, grabbed some sugar to press onto the nail and said that it can be used as a coagulant (I learn something new every day). That seemed to work after a minute, but....wait....ok never mind. It was still bleeding. So while I applied pressure to her paw while holding her close to my chest so she couldn't wiggle out, Joe looked in one of the beagle books we have and it mentioned using cornstarch to stop the bleeding. Tried it. Seemed to work okay, but there was still some blood coming out. So we called our vet (who was CLOSED because it was a Sunday night) but then called the emergency number that is recorded on our vet's answering machine. Apparently, there is an emergency animal clinic a few miles away (good to know). So Joe talked to the vet there and he said to try putting flour in the cut and holding pressure onto it for a minute. Then, if it was still bleeding after a few minutes we should probably bring her in. At this point, I was getting limp arms from holding Lucy, so Joe took hold of her and I held the flour pressed against her claw. I even held it there for 2 minutes just to be sure. That seemed to do the trick. So, to end the debacle, Joe dabbed a little super glue to the claw to seal it well and we were left with remnants of sugar, cornstarch and flour all over our clothes (and a few drops of Lucy to boot).
  2. SHORT VERSION - I will never...let me repeat...NEVER try to cut my dog's nails again. I am a little traumatized.

3 comments:

Colleen said...

OMG! I don't even like dogs, and that poor, pathetic face is soooooo heartbreaking!!!!!

t dawg said...

ha ha ha

yeah. she's actually forgot about the whole thing like an hour after it happened. i think i was traumatized way more than she was.

joehammed said...

To quote the woman from Minnesota we met at Montezuma's Castle " Boy I'll tell you what, that dog is freakin' cute, eh ?" or something like that, she was weird... I guess we are too.

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