Long night!

Here is Scrubs this morning after a long night. He can't sleep in his kennel (he can't fit in there with this e-collar on) so he slept on a bed in our bedroom. JB put a colored piece of paper on the e-color to prevent Scrubs from seeing his feet. But when that didn't work, he had to put socks over his paws. Poor doggie!

I know I know! I just want to take it off too. He looks miserable!

Sorry for more pet posts, but quite honestly, other than the grant I am working on, and the fact that JB is on an easy rotation, there really isn't anything else major to report.

You can probably tell from these photos that it has been a long few days in our house. I dropped Scrubs off around 7:30 yesterday to get neutered and have his dew claws removed. Having the dew claws removed isn't a routine practice, however, Scrubs is famous for bear hugging our legs and drawing blood. These can also get snagged and torn easily and infected. Scrubs has already had some snagging going on. So we opted to have them removed.

JB went with me to pick Scrubs up at 4:30pm. We were blown away when the estimate they gave us for the procedure was doubled when the bill rang up. They had forgotten to include the dew claws and the microchip on the estimate! I had noticed that when I signed it in the morning and told the lady that they weren't on there. She told me, "Yeah, that's like $20 bucks a foot or something." What she should have done is gotten me a new estimate. Instead, we were a little shocked when the bill came in. JB and I are always nice about things, but this was a little bothersome, and the ladies understood why it wasn't good business to present a bill that is double the estimate. We do like this vet though and don't plan on leaving them, but this was a little disconcerting and frustrating.

The other issue was that Scrubs' e-collar (Elizabethian collar!) was a bit too small so he could get to his bandages. We tried putting a piece of paper in the e-collar so he couldn't see his feet. This didn't help. We did manage to get him to sleep on a pad in our bedroom (his e-collar makes putting him in his crate impossible!) But he woke up at 5am tearing at his bandages. He had figured out a way to get to them even with the collar on.

As a result, JB had to rig some socks to keep him out of the bandages. We then went to the 24 hour vet (which was free in combination with our surgery) to get a bigger e-collar. Scrubs now has the paper and the socks off because this collar is big enough and he can't get to his feet. I do feel bad and almost wish we hadn't gotten the claws removed. JB tells me that this was mandatory before he tore up someone else's legs or tore his dew claw off by snagging it on something. Okay, okay, but I still feel bad.

This weekend we are watching William so that Matt and Tiffany can celebrate her birthday. I will also be doing a lot of grant work. I am not sure that we can leave Scrubs home alone right now -- he really needs to be watched. So I am not sure we will make church tomorrow. We also hope to go to a bock party around the corner from our house tomorrow night. Hopefully we can leave him home a bit for that.

We aren't supposed to exercise him for a week! I am worried this dog will be getting into all sort of mischief without exercise to wear him out. We will see!!