Now it's my turn to limp

I was quite a hit today at the dog park. All the dogs kept coming up to me to sniff and then try to lick my knees. Unfortunately it was not because I had smeared myself with peanut butter but because I had smeared myself with Neosporin after having a run in with the sidewalk last night. In case you are wondering, the sidewalk won. We were walking the dogs in the evening and two things joined forces against me: the uneven sidewalk and gravity, assisted by the hill we were walking down. I tripped and before I could do anything my knees were taking most of the force of the fall. 

After hobbling home with blood dripping down my legs I got to spend the next half hour cleaning the scrapes. A shower didn't do the job sufficiently so I had to endure betadine and hyrogen peroxide washes and then cotton swab scrubbing and poking with tweezers to get all the little bits of gravel out. I can't think of a more enjoyable way to spend an evening. Oh wait, yes I can. 

While yesterday hurt I am sure it is only the beginning because as the wounds heal and scab over it will hurt every time I bend my knees. And knees, as we all know, bend often. It's pretty much all they do. Lucky me.

On a more positive note, Scout finally saw a bone specialist and he said that Scout's limp is nothing to be concerned about. Possibly some elbow dysplasia but it shouldn't stop Scout from going on walks or playing at the dog park, much to Scout's delight. At least one of us is on the mend.

Barnyard brawl

With (at current count) 18 animals, noise is something I am quite familiar with. Dogs bark, cats meow, rabbits thump their feet on the ground when they are annoyed at something, roosters crow, hens cackle, ducks quack, and mice run on their wheel. Animals make noise: this I know and generally pay little attention to. The exception to this rule are the typical noises that signal something is wrong - cats that hiss or growl, a bark with a certain tone, or - around here - a frantic flapping of wings. 

This sound of wing beats is what alerted me to something amiss in the backyard the other day. As this sound never means anything good is happening, I ran outside to discover Maggie and Gretchen in the middle of a whirlwind of wings and feathers. After separating them I was able to look them over and Maggie appeared to have gotten the worst of it, with a gash under his chin (if ducks have chins) that was bleeding. As ducks are equipped with very little weaponry compared to the beaks and spurs of a rooster, Gretchen walked away without so much as a scratch from what I could tell. Maggie's gash was somewhat worrisome, but even more than that was the concern that antibiotics would be required and they would need to be started immediately. 

That this incident happened on the Sunday before the fourth of July was even more unfortunate: it meant that our avian vet would be unavailable until Tuesday at the earliest. Our backup vet was also not in the office. The only option left was the emergency vet (one town over, because our emergency vet didn't have anyone who could treat ducks), which probably meant a big wait and an even bigger bill. (I swear the animals conspire only to get injured when it is the most inconvenient timing and all the regular vets are unavailable.) 

This circumstance is how we found ourselves sitting in the waiting room at the emergency vet surrounded by the usual cats with kidney stones and vomiting dogs. Walking in there with a duck made us something of an emergency vet celebrity. Two hours, one stitch, fourteen pills, and $100 later we walked out of there sufficiently patched up and ready to live to fight another day. And I'm sure it's only a matter of time until they do.