Nice Try Darwin

Nice Try Darwin

It was a nice day out at the grandparents.  We were pruning the olive trees that line the drive way and using a sledge hammer to drive in the stakes to which the trees were to be tied.  I asked where Shadow was since my boys enjoy him being around even though they usually get knocked over and licked in the face multiple times with each encounter.  Grandma said he was in the kennel so I went to let him out and look for the mini sledge hammer (that I remembered being by the bees) since the big one was a bit awkward for me to use.  When I let shadow go he gave me his obligatory play bite that is pretty annoying and jumped up on my shirt and pants, which is very annoying, then ran off down to where Grandma and Grandpa were with Heidi and the boys.  As he ran away I noticed a pink cyst like lesion on his doggy parts.  I made a mental note that it would have to be taken care of, or at least looked at, and went off to the bees to get the mini sledge.  As I approached the bees I saw that the base had collapsed under the weight of the honey and the hives had fallen over.  The bees were still there so that was good.  Just one more thing to take care of at grandma’s house.  I couldn’t find the mini sledge but figured we had better get the bees upright sooner than later so I set off down the property to tell mom and dad the news and to check on Shadow’s strange pink nodule.  I first told Grandpa to stay calm and delivered the news about the bees, assured grandpa that it was easily remedied, and how we should probably suit up and take care of it.  My attention was drawn back to shadow as he again left dirty paw prints on my clothes and bit my hands hoping to play.  I responded by pushing him down to have a look at whatever it was that I had seen.  Any thought of helping the bees vanished as I stared at Shadow’s testicle protruding from his lacerated scrotum.  “Uh, Grandma… When was the last time you walked shadow?” I asked because not only did shadow have a gapping hole where no hole had business being but the wound margins had healed over like a pierced ear.  Grandma swore up and down that they had walked shadow the day before.  When pressed further she admitted that it was David that had walked him the day before, and the day before that, and she couldn’t really give me a straight answer as to when the last time she or Grandpa had walked Shadow.  No big deal really, David is great with Shadow and enjoys his company but I just wanted to get a handle on how many days old this wound could be.  By now Grandpa wasn’t too happy with the prospect of paying a vet more money to sew up this dog’s unit than he was worth.  I told Grandpa that before he went and got the shotgun (not really, Grandpa wasn’t really considering this… I think), that maybe we could take care of it.  Once I found out they still had a bunch of sutures left over from Grandpa’s practice we were in business.  I asked grandma to track them down while I got a flushing solution made up with some diluted Betadine in warm water.  I figured the best place to do this would be on the grass so we took the very excited to have so much attention, Shadow, outside to get fixed (pun intended).  The hard part came when it was time to restrain him.  This is where my Eagle Scout rank would come in handy if only I were an Eagle Scout.  Where is Joseph when you need him?  After many attempts to hog tie Shadow we settled for Grandpa and Uncle Dave holding him with much of their weight on him.  That was when Shadow stopped thinking the attention was so cool and started to squirm a bit.  Upon further inspection it was apparent that these wound margins were not going to heal with out some help and I was not about to cut Shadow to give him new healthy margins with out some local anesthetic.  So I gave him some injections around the area (also left over from grandpa’s practice), waited a few minutes, flushed all of the bits of dirt and rubble out and then proceeded to cut and sew.  What should have taken a minute tops took 45 due to his constant squirm (not due to pain but being pinned under two biggish guys), and to (all of you familiar with a dog’s anatomy realize) the body part in question is not firmly attached and moved like a piston in a car with Shadow’s rapid breathing.   So grandma kindly secured the appendage in question.  After the ordeal was over Shadow jumped up and once again gave me an annoying but playful bite and again jumped on me making me wonder why I had even bothered.  I told grandma to keep a close eye on him and to bring him to the Vet if he started acting funny in any way, overly drowsy, rapid breathing, vomiting, you name it.  I had to give Darwin credit though, on many occasions I’ve thought that this dog has no business swimming in the gene pool, and it turns out Darwin agreed.  Now with that out of the way, Heidi, the boys and I could enjoy a nice relaxing day at the Grandparents house.  Oh yea, the bees…

I am happy to report that after about two weeks you could no longer see any remnants of the hole except a small bald spot.