He's not "0 months". They didn't really ask.
I just said "2 years". He's really almost 2 1/2 (in case you were interested).
The other night, Scout and Jett were laying on the floor batting at each other and rolling around. It was so quiet that I didn't even notice really. They've been known to really go at it gladiator-style, so if pillows aren't flying onto the floor, I rarely notice. That's what puppies do. Scott and I were sitting on the couch two feet away.
Suddenly, Jett started yelping uncontrollably and it was because he had the bottom part of his jaw, including his pointy teeth, wrapped around Scout's collar and kept pulling, which was strangling Scout. I don't want to go into detail because I'm really just trying to forget it, but here's the text I sent my friend.
We were in the middle of texting back and forth and then I disappeared for an hour or so and this was my explanation.
As soon as Scott had managed to cut the collar loose, Jett ran off in one direction and Scout ran under the guest bed, leaving a blood trail. Scott had to flip the bed up, knocking over other furniture in the process, in order to get him out.
We drove to the emergency vet 45 minutes away. This seems like the longest time ever when you have an injured pet, but we're better off here than we were in Missouri. That ER vet was NINETY minutes away and it was the closest one. That should be illegal.
We were at the vet for about an hour and were assuming he'd need stitches. They ended up pumping him with meds/sedatives and gave him anesthesia ($$$) to do a surgical procedure. Since they had other more critical patients, we left Scout there and went home. Scott was leaving in the morning for training (it's always effing training, isn't it?) and needed to finish packing. I figured I'd need to be watching him the next day so I started texting my teammate at school, trying to get last-minute sub plans together. The vet told us they'd call when they were done with him and so we drove home with just Jett. I mopped up the blood and got about 2 hours of sleep (after I wrote my sub plans).
The vet called at midnight-ish and said we could come get him. Scott drove in because he wasn't sleeping anyway. They ended up putting in a drain, along with the sutures, because it was a little deeper of a cut than they'd originally thought. Plus pain meds and antibiotics. And his eye is pretty swollen from the whole strangling thing, which is just heartbreaking. I hope it goes back down soon. He can't wear a cone because the cut is on the back of his neck. The damage was $800 at the emergency vet. Though I prefer the emergency vet to the actual vet, which probably isn't a good thing. It's so clean and pleasant there and the people are so nice. I didn't feel like they were robbing us blind. I always feel that way at the regular vet. (Maybe it's time to switch vets...)
You can see a shorn paw, where his IV was. They also shaved the back of his neck and it looks so sad (it's gross, so you don't want to see it).
Anyway, no more collars. Scout currently can't wear one and doesn't have one anyway because it's chopped in half. I'm keeping Jett's by the door and he wears it when he's outside but I don't think I can let them go out together in collars because they like to wrestle outside too. It's a issue I think I'll be very stressed out over for awhile. I've told the story to a few people (like my neighbor and a couple of coworkers because I've missed a lot of work this week...and Scout is coming to work with me today since it's a half-day) and no one had ever considered it before. My friend told me her dog got her collar caught on a kennel once and, ever since, she's gone collar-less. But that dog is 10 years old and listens. Our dogs...I worry about them running off. Microchips only do so much and I think it's easier to look down and see a phone number.
This is one safety issue I never considered so I'm sharing it in case it's something you've never thought about. Hopefully our dear Scout is back to normal soon. And don't feel too bad for him: he more or less destroyed the house yesterday because he was left alone with the run of the place. This hasn't affected his ability to do whatever the heck he wants.
