Friday, October 02, 2009

Tick Tock Around the Clock

Wrigley has a way of charging in where angels fear to tread. Thus, he sees an apparent obstacle such as a hedge row of Queen Anne's Lace, valerian, chicory, grasses and the like, and he goes in nose to the ground and never a scent be missed. So it is that he comes home with burs in his fur and scratches on his face. We deal with it. He doesn't like you messing with his tail. He's very proud of that plume even though it might be woven through with cleavers and mother's wort seed. We deal with it. We also deal with ticks. We try very hard to find and eradicate the parasites and Frontline on a regular basis. I kinda worry about pouring an oily complex organic molecule on his spine every month, but I am told it needs to happen. I know in Phoenix it needed to happen. The desert is extremely dry, even for bugs. Ticks on a dog there was nasty. Hell, they're nasty here. So anyway, apparently we did not manage to get all of one out sometime back and it left some "parts" embedded in poor Wrigley's neck. He got to scratching it from time to time, as a young dog might and it got infected. Last night he oozed a tad and that is how we spotted the sore.

We applied normal first aid, cleaned it up and smeared an antibiotic on it. The skin wasn't red, just pink. Bed time he and I toddled off and he immediately snuggled right up close. He didn't seem right, and that morning he had been to the hair dressers so he should have been frisky. I checked him over while he tried to do his wiggliest to prevent me from touching him near the sore. His front paws felt warm to me, compared to his rear paws. That made me get up, dress and the two of us left the girls behind for the all night animal emergency clinic in South Glens Falls.

That's where Hidey cat was taken and where we learned we could not save her. That's where we picked up her ashes.

They shaved, nicked, sedated, and cleaned the area so it turned a light pink to a red in the middle. There was a black point right in the middle. that's where they took out the head of the nasty little tick creep bastard blood sucker. I dislike them a whole lot. Wrigley didn't seem sedated although he was having a hard time with the itchiness of the spot where they shaved. I kept explaining to him about bacteria but he was very distracted by the ITCHINESS of the spot. I took him home with some cream for the wound. Once home he began to exhibit the effects of the sedative. He didn't quite walk straight and when he got an itch he would suddenly leap up, run to a clearing, turn and scratch the spot. But when he moved fast he tended to lean a bit and then he might fall a bit. He also started whining at odd moments, shortly before he leaped into the air and spun around, nibbling and rear-legging it. I learned that if I just stroked him gently from stem to stern he would nod off. This meant that I not.

The night went like the old sign on a cheap hotel in the seedy part of town. Blinking, blacking out, coming up bright and then repeating the process. I got tired and fell asleep a couple times, but when he jumped up, I would wake up. Actually, ever since that time in Phoenix when the bikers burst into the apartment I was sharing with a buddy who apparently sold horse tranquilizers as synthetic mescaline, thus causing several bikers to convulse, I have slept lightly, waking up to the sound of sudden movements or just a board creak in the cold night air. Wrigley leaping fit right in to those examples. I plan to nap later today, especially if he shows he can sleep. Then I will have a shot at, like six hours maybe of real sleep. That's much nicer. Until the pseudo-charities call asking for money to show our support. I show support by paying the bills and student loans on time.

Hey! He's sleeping.

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