BITCHES AND STITCHES

When "buying a car" ends up being the second biggest news from your day, you know you had a big Saturday. When I awoke yesterday, it was like any other Saturday really. My lovely wife was talking about how much she wanted the CRV with leather, I was hungry for my weekly burrito, got up and jogged to the gym, took the dogs to the dog park. It's Saturday. You remember Tucker (above), the dog that I rescued from the storm drain not a day after we got him home. Tucker has always had a dangerous lean. I've started calling him varying nicknames like "Danger" or "Thunder." I've often called him "Nails" though because of his tolerance for pain. He's like a freaking stunt dog sometimes. They called him a purebred when we picked him up, but I swear his mother mated with Howie Long. The dude could take a stomping from an elephant and bounce up like, "where's the ball?"

What started as just an innocent trip to the Honda lot ended up in a trade up into the top-of-the-line CRV for just pennies more a month. Good move for us. When we get home, I walk into the kitchen where the dogs are. I'm greeted, as usual, by Tux and then Jax just behind him. Both are wagging their tails as I kneel down on the ground. I give Tucker a firm pat on his side and my hand lands right in the middle of a wet mess of hair. I pull my hand away to see it covered in blood. I grab him by the collar and gently pull him into the light and inspect his side. A ghastly sight.

There's about a five inch laceration down his side starting at his shoulder and the skin is hanging open. It's the deepest gash I've ever seen in my life on an animal or mammal that was actually living. We're not talking about a scratch. Tucker's body is literally opened up. It doesn't appear to have bled much at all as his coat was still relatively clean, but the seriousness of this incision needed immediate attention. Tucker, all the while, is carrying on like he has no clue. Maybe not full speed. There was some apparent shock settling in. He was shivering slightly. With no time to inspect the cause, we covered him in an official The Root Down lowrider tee and took him to the emergency clinic. For those interested, a picture of the open wound is available upon request. It was a little much for even The Root Down.

We arrive at the emergency clinic. It's one of those 24-hour jobs. They bring us right in and I'm hoping his wound pushes him up the priority list. I thought about how much it would suck if a white lion walked in with a near-fatal headwound. Tucker might have to wait. Lucky for us, there was no white lion and the young doc named Seth was quick to meet us. He walked in and looked not a hair older than 18 years old. "Hey, ya'll," he said with his hand extended. He squatted down by Tucker and inspected him exclaiming, "A beagle!"

My lovely wife and I smiled half-heartedly.

He looks up at us and says, "In college, my roommate had this bitch..."

(blank looks from my lovely wife and I)


































...and a stud beagle and he basically paid for his books through college with those litters." Right! "Bitch" as in female dog. Not the Jerry Springer variety. Seth immediately puts us at ease as he quickly assesses the wound. He explains that the best thing is that, as deep as it is, it's not near anything vital. And, just looking at it, you could see it was nothing but fat tissue really. A little muscle. They put together an estimate. I signed on the line and, the worst part, we were asked to leave him behind and they'd call us when they were done. Now, this is at about 8:30 at this point. I'm thinking that I really don't even care how long it takes, we're not leaving him. Dude has acute seperation anxiety anyway. Leaving him could make it worse. We let the nurses know that he could get horsey without us there and is probably going to become quite vocal. She assured us that he'd be fine.

We leave. That was a long drive home.

When we got home, we put in "Planet Earth" and watched polar bears for a few minutes and consoled Jackson who was freaked out a little. Unable to really relax, we made a few phone calls and brought everyone up to speed on our day and then, before dinner was even done cooking, we get a call from the clinic saying Tucker's ready. We split.

When we arrive, I'm expecting to hear him from the waiting room, but I don't hear Tucker at all. Usually, you can hear him the second you roll into the parking lot with the windows up. They bring him up to the front and, as they're opening the door, they explain that he's having a little bit of a "drooling problem" because of the anesthetic and slight sedation that was required for the operation. "Problem" didn't really do it justice. It wasn't even excessive. This was more explosive. Check out sedated Tucker just after getting back to the pad.


At the end of it, they had to shave his poor penguin suit back to staple him shut. They did internal stitching that will disolve and then they had to staple up the exterior. It's a pretty gnarly scar. No one's gonna mess with this kid now. That's a battle wound that'll make rotts whimper.

Overall, the kid has 21 visible staples and is sleeping peacefully this morning as I type this. The painkillers are starting to wear off and he's doing a little bit of moaning and readjusting, but he'll be fine. The hallucinations seem to have subsided. We all had a slumber party last night in the living room as we all crashed around where he laid when he got home--not wanting to move him or leave him there alone.
The hair will grow back and his spirit will recover before too long. This morning, as the sun shines on the yard, I'm going to find the culprit. Can't imagine would could've done that kind of damage. You kinda feel like a bad pet owner when this stuff happens. The most you can do is act quick and put faith in those qualified to make the decisions/incisions.

Trying to think of a new nickname for ol' boy.