"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Crime Scene

Thursday night, I'm minding my own business...blogging, catching up on the days news.  (SM won't be home until after 10 so I can hog the computer.)

I get up to do something (I can't even remember what) and walk into the living room to see a crime scene

Blood everywhere! 

WTF! 

(This time I did not say "freakin"...)(Grin)

I notice the blood immediately on the carpeting and suddenly, everyone (dogs and cat) scatters.  So I have to figure out who's bleeding.

Cat runs to the cat door.  I try and head him off, but "swish" his fat little kitty butt is through that thing like greased lightening.  Then I notice that there is no trail of blood to the cat door.

One of the dogs then.

Ginny sometimes wags (and therefore bangs) her tail so hard that she bleeds on the tip of her tail.  I grab her tail.  (Nothing) Mouth, feet...nothing.

Scooter has retreated to his couch and I do a similar pat down but also notice no blood on the floor around him.  So it must be Casey.

When Casey tries to hide, she can be quite invisible because of her coloring.  Instant camouflage.  It takes me a few moments to realize she gone into her crate.

I grab some wet paper towel's to try and figure out the source of the wound.  Because of the amount of blood on the floors I immediately suspected a torn nail or dew claw.  I get nothing but a little "pink" on her feet.  Start to swipe up.  Nothing on her belly.  I get to her left side and she's soaked.  I went and got a bath towel and wet it down to not only wipe her down, but help me see if I could find the wound.

Nothing...still.  I can't figure it!

Casey by this time is flipping and flopping like a puppy does when she knows she done something wrong.  I start to speak to her more playfully and she pops up and lets some more blood fly, but this time I see it. 

Tip of the ear.

In all of my dog owning days, I've never had a dogs ear get wounded.  She has a small gash on her left ear.  I sat there "compressing" her ear looking around astonished at the amount of blood everywhere.  I finally get it to slow down enough to leave her and get my first aid kit...(which we never use.)

More clean up and I've bandaged her ear and wrapped both ear's down with a compression sling around her neck.  Back into the crate to rest.

I now survey my kingdom.  It's around 7:30pm by now and I know the blood on the carpet is dry.  Both living room, hallway and office have areas of large drips and smaller spray drips.  Then I notice the walls.  Areas of sprayed blood on the walls as tall as I am.

I wet another bath towel and hit the walls, and furniture first.  I mop the vinyl and wood floors.

On to the carpeting.  I attack the area with the carpet cleaner, but as I suspected, the blood ain't going anywhere.

I hit Google.  Hydrogen peroxide.  Who would've thought?

So armed with a bottle of HP and a toothbrush and wet dishcloth I set to work.  It works pretty well!  Takes some time, and the bigger drips will need repeat applications, but there is hope that my carpeting might be salvaged.

It's  amazing how quickly a bottle of HP can go.  I call SM and ask him to pick some more up before he gets home.

By 10:00 I'm out of HP and exhausted.  Casey starts to whimper, (she doesn't like being crated) so I call it a day and unwrap her sling and cuddle her.  The bandage is holding and I don't see any more seepage.

SM comes home and I'm too tired to do anything else.  Everyone to bed!

Friday morning at 4:30 I'm up and take the bandage off.  Looks OK.  Give everybody a snackie and with a quick shake of her head, starts she starts dripping again.


I bandaged her back up.  Later that morning I research dog ear wounds.  Dogs ears help them regulate their temperatures so they are nothing but furry covered blood vessels.  I read a few articles of potential, stitches and/or cautery.  Need to get some "liquid bandage".

Hmmm.  A trip to the vet is undesirable right now.  SM and I form the plan that we'll try it my way with the bandage only for the weekend and monitor her. 

I'm off from work next week.  "Stay-cation".  So I'll have time to run her to the vets if we can't get it to heal up on our own.


As of this morning she's still doing well.  Yesterday's bandage is holding up.  Casey doesn't seem too annoyed by her big white earring and my house is slowly getting cleaned up.

I'll be on my hands and knees scrubbing the carpet again today.  But it looks better already.  I need to look more closely at the furniture though.  I even saw a drop of blood on a lampshade.

What a freakin mess!

5 comments:

  1. Oh, poor baby! I hope she's doing better by the weekend. Any idea what happened? I probably would have went to the vet because I wouldn't have known what to do! Good on ya for being so resourceful!

    I have used borax on blood stains and it does a good job.

    I hope you get to enjoy your time at home this week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh I know how you feel. Long ago I had a dog get her ear cut and your right, there was blood everywhere cause they just keep shaking their head! They I had an accident with a current dog and a cut on the nose. Same thing, looked like I butchered a dog. Plus my dogs are on omega-3 oil and vitamin e which thins the blood. I think you have another pet that has some explaining to do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jane is right one of those critters needs to fess up! Hope she is better soon. Blessings jane

    ReplyDelete
  4. Poor Casey, Sounds like you handled the whole thing. Funny, because the other day I went out to the gaot shed and Jasmine had an injury on her ear. Did you know HP will get fresh blood out of things? I don't think it works on dried blood (sorry!) but it bubbles fresh even out of carpeting.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The hydrogen peroxide is working, even on the dried blood with repeat applications).

    However, "Eagle-Eye" SM points out the it DID lighten the carpeting up a little bit.

    (It's beige 12 year old carpeting for crissake... It's been pooped on, peed on, vomited on and now a ritual sacrifice on it. There's a REASON why we're not getting new carpeting any time soon.)

    Somewhat annoyed, (cause it is ME on my hands and knees doing the work after all) I point out, "Look...would you rather have the brown spot or the "slightly" lighter spot?"

    SM knows when to walk away

    ReplyDelete