Treats play a big part in our parenting skills which is why, if we ever had children they'd be little porkers (just like daddy). They've learned that the fastest way to a treat is to bark and howl and jump until they get one. Score another one for the dogs. We've discovered that marrow bones (a.k.a. soup bone) will keep them occupied the longest and we tend to use them when we need some time alone. With 3 dogs, after a few years the basement is starting to look like a graveyard. We could throw the used bones out, but even after the marrow is gone and all that's left is a doughnut shaped bone, they can and do go back to them for something to just chew on. Especially Sandy.
Sandy. Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. Third dog has been maybe the sweetest yet most destructive, most disruptive dog we've ever owned. He's so goofy and so seemingly unaware of his body that he makes us laugh every day. He's had more than his share of stuffed toys which he takes joy in destroying in record time, not to mention the non toy items he's had in his jaws including socks, hats underwear, bras and slippers. He's the most likely one to go back and chew the old marrow bones that we have kicking around.
And that's what he was doing yesterday morning. Late in the morning Kathy noticed that he was clinging to her which seemed unusual when he had the other 2 dogs to bother. I found him down our bed with a bone in front of him and when I tried to engage him in a game of tug a war, I noticed he already had a bone in his mouth. Not only was it in his mouth, but the nut had gotten his lower jaw through the center of the bone and over his canine teeth. When I saw what was going on I tried to remove it, but I had no success. I could only guess what was going through his mind, "Get this off me, don't take my bone. Get this off me, don't take my bone".
I told Kathy what I'd discovered and after a laugh she tried her hand at getting it off. Still no success. I called my neighbor Shawn who has a couple of big dumb dogs himself and asked what he thought. He said he'd seen this same problem once on the internet and that they had cut the bone off the dogs mouth using a Dremel tool. He said he was going to get a Dremel for himself to grind down his dog's nails, so we went to the hardware store to get the little hand-held grinder and some blades. Before we left, we gave Sandy a dose of some canine pain meds to help calm him down so he would be easier to work on.
In theory this was the answer. We now had the tool but when Shawn tried to cut one of the other bones we have lying around to see how it would go, it turned out to be a much more labor intensive process that we'd hoped. Add to that the fact that the pain meds seemed to have no effect on Sandy's energy level, and we were back to square one. Our regular vet does not keep Sunday hours and the local 24/7 emergency vet charges over $150 just to walk through the door.
Since this didn't seem like a life threatening ailment I figured we'd just go to our regular vet on Monday. Because Sandy is part blood hound he's got these jowly lips that all but cover this latest disfigurement. The only real problem seemed to be he was droolier than usual (is that even a word? Spell check says "no"). I called my boss at the park (she used to be a vet tech) to let her know I wouldn't be in Monday. When I told her why she laughed too. She'd seen this thing happen before and had a few suggestions but unfortunately nothing we'd not already tried.
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| Bagle Bone |
