Tuesdays With Toby

When I was younger, I thought of making a career of forensics. Over the past few months, I’ve cleaned up more blood and serum than I ever thought possible considering I’m a writer.

You just don’t expect your dog to bleed and barf and blow out like a volcano erupted in your home – ever.

You know that But thankfully, he recovered in time to celebrate Christmas while keeping down his cookies.

A couple years ago he cut his tongue while trying to wake me up one morning. It was a mess and I was covered in canine blood. The tongue clotted on our way to the vet and after a few days of wearing an e-collar (one of those plastic cones) around his neck, Toby was OK.

But last weekend—can I say I’ve never been so happy to see Monday come around?—I found myself once again, knee-deep in a dog mess.

Toby and I had a friend visiting—my friend’s dog, Cody. On Saturday morning, after our morning outing, Toby’s tail got caught in a steel door.

Being a “wagger” Toby didn’t let that stop his happy tail and blood went flinging all over the hallway walls. So much blood that the maintenance team had to come and clean it up.

Once back in my apartment, I tossed who came right up to help me stem the bleeding. Cold water wasn’t doing the trick and the tail wouldn’t clot. Finally, Sonia was able to wrap Toby’s tail in gauze and medical tape long enough for us to get him out the door.

Once at the vet, his tail was cleaned and bandaged. We got him antibiotics and pain meds. The vet told us to take of the bandage the next day because wounds like this tend to get infected without air and sunshine.

After four hours of cleanup, passing off Cody to another friend, a wound re-opening and re-bandaging, Toby’s tail wound is now healed and now we just have to wait for the hair to grow back on it.

Although this situation left me on the verge of insanity, I learned a few things that I thought you might like to know about.

• Toby’s vet is a long distance away, but having a 24-hour emergency clinic for dire situations is worth the drive.

• Having a vet that keeps your dog’s records online and will communicate with you through the Internet is golden.

• Warm water and soap will take canine blood off your walls.

• If your dog gets a tail wound, consider wrapping it in gauze and a plastic bag with a few air holes in it. The gauze will provide pressure and the bag will prevent blood from getting on your walls. You definitely want to make sure that air can get to the wound.

Finally, I’d like to give a shout we left in two hallways and who patiently deflected calls from concerned residents who saw blood splattered all over the walls outside their apartments.