Poor Bing Bong

I was relaxing with a bowl of Special K with Red Berries earlier this morning, and I happened to notice that Scooter (the dog, not the greatly anticipated machine) had a bit of a problem.

Namely, one of his dewclaws was at a weird angle.

At first, I thought maybe he'd just cracked the nail, and I could just trim it down to a more comfortable length. I went into my room to get the dreaded nail clippers, and my sister went to the kitchen to get a bag of distraction cookies.

Trimming Scooter's nails is a bit of a procedure. The first two times I trimmed his nails after we adopted him, he was fine. He lay prostrate on my lap while I trimmed and filed.

Third time? Two nails in, he jumped up, all stiff legs and teeth. And that was that.

And thus the whole ordeal.

Except this time, when I touched his nail, he pulled back not to be a pain, but because he was in pain. And so began my third visit to the vet in a month.

They were nice enough to fit us in, and the technician had a quick look. She suggested that the nail would have to be pulled.

Ah, glorious guilt. I felt terrible, thinking that if I'd just sucked it up and trimmed his nails a week ago, like I had wanted to, this wouldn't have happened.

I mean, don't they pull people's nails out as a form of torture? Scooter doesn't have any information, let him be!

The vet had a look too, and agreed with the technician. He thought it would come out really easily, and said he could do it one of two ways. He could do it the expensive way, and treat it as a surgical procedure, or he could do what he does with his own dogs - put a muzzle on him, pull it really quick (like a child's tooth) and give him a cookie.
I let him take Scooter into the back room, and I went outside to wait. I knew if I heard him yelp, I would start to cry.

Turns out, Scooter Bing Bong's quite the little soldier. Not a peep. He came out with a jaunty blue bandage on his foot, none the worse for wear. The vet prescribed a round of antibiotics, just in case, and we were done. I was really grateful that they could squeeze us in without an appointment - I really like my vets. And that's saying a lot, cause my favourite vet is my dad.

And so goes another claim to my PetCare Insurance policy. Not that I ever wanted to need it, but I'm glad it's coming in handy.

On the way home, we made a special stop for cookies and a bully stick (dried and cured bull eurethra). I think the bully sticks are disgusting, and they give Scoots deadly toots, but today he earned it.

Tough little guy.