Day of the Dogs

If you're reading the Twitter updates in the sidebar, you're probably waiting with bated breath to hear about our doggy misadventures from this morning.

Misadventure The First: PerfectPup Takes a Walk
First, we took them for a walk, over on the railroad track, where we let them run off-leash.

They were actually doing quite well, not straying too far off in the woods, coming back pretty quickly when called, and so forth.

On our way back, I was just about to say something about that to Shrike, when they took off down the track and went into the woods.

When we caught up to where they'd gone in, Shrike spotted them near a barn, across a field.

When she called them, BigGaloot came back, but then we saw Not-So-PerfectPup head off toward the cemetery where we also walk sometimes.

Galoot went after her, (I don't remember if we told him to, but that's possible - sometimes he can round her up.) and Shrike walked back up the track and then, eventually, into the woods, looking for her.

After five or ten minutes, Galoot came romping back out, but there was still no sign of NSPP.

By then, Shrike had had enough, and was ready to take Galoot home, and I guess she was planning to go look for NSPP on her own.

Or maybe not. She was pretty pissed at her.

As we got close to home, there she was, in our next door neighbor's driveway, looking at us like, "Where the hell have you been?"

Of course, our boundary-less neighbor across the street was looking out his door, watching it all, as Shrike ran to get her.

He said that she'd been hanging out by our front door for a while, "I figured you were right behind her."

Then, of course, he had to add, "I assume someone let her off-leash?"

Fuck you. Mind your own God-damned business.

Misadventure the Second: Galoot Takes a Bite
Once we got home, we were hungry, and there was nothing yummy in the house, so we decided to go pick up some lunch at Taco Bell.

As we ate, the dogs sat by the table, watching, as usual. Also as usual, we gave them some leftover taco salad - each on their own plate.

Galoot, of course, finished his first, then went to have some of NSPP's.

I think Shrike may have reached down to move him away, or maybe she was just sitting right there, but at any rate, right about then, NSPP got pissed, and started barking and snapping at him, and he barked and snapped back.

I really don't think anyone had any intention of doing anything but making a lot of noise but, unfortunately for Shrike, she and her arm were right in the middle of it.

I was yelling at her to get away from them, and we were both yelling at both of them, and they were both yelling at each other.

That all probably lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed like forever.

When the fur stopped flying, I saw Shrike grab a napkin and put it on her arm.

She's pretty sure that Galoot was the one who got her (don't know how she knows that) but I don't guess that matters much.

She's got one puncture wound, but it doesn't seem to be deep. It looks more like his tooth just make a little slice in the skin.

That "slice" is kind of gaping, but quite small, so we don't think it needs a stitch (wouldn't take more than one, if it did).

There's also pretty nasty bruise associated with that wound (it popped up right away; I can only imagine how it will look by tomorrow) and some smaller bruises and marks where the rest of his teeth hit.

We washed it out really well, and put a bunch of neosporin on it, and a couple of band aids, and she was supposed to go buy some butterfly bandages on her way to work, because I'm kind of bothered by the gapiness of it.

She's also promised to call the doctor in the morning, and see about getting tetanus shot.

She wouldn't let me take a picture of the wound itself, because she says that you don't want to see that, but here she is all fixed up. (The band aids are covering the rather impressive bruise.)


And here's Galoot, looking appropriately ashamed of himself.

Edited to Add:
What I neglected to mention above is how I freaked out about Shrike's dog bite. At first I was all cool and collected and going to take care of her.

Then I looked at it a few times and I was all Oh-My-God-There's-A-Hole-In-My-Wife-That's-Not-Supposed-To-Be-There!!! and she ended up comforting me.

It wasn't the grossness of it (although, it was none too pretty) or the blood (there wasn't much) but more that I was just upset about her being hurt.

I'd like to blame it on the hormones, or maybe I'm just a huge wuss.

I really didn't handle it too well when Galoot was mysteriously gushing blood from his ear that time, or (several years pre-blog) when MamaCat declawed herself during a seizure or (more recently, but still pre-blog) when MamaCat impaled her tongue on a tooth, during a seizure.

(She has had a few seizure-related misadventures, that little MamaCat of ours.)

God help us if when Peeper gets herself injured for the first time.