Gidget - Mischief (Almost) Managed

"We need to get a friend for Daisy."

"She's very lonely and sad when we leave her alone all day at home."

So we did. There she was, Gidget. An Australian stumpy tail cattle dog, small for her breed but feisty like no other (probably because the previous owners named her Gidget). She was...different than Daisy, she was quite a handful.

We thought they were going to accompany and play with each other when we were not in the house, but Gidget had her own idea of fun. She chewed up their plastic bowls, the couch, the trash, the socks and turned Daisy into a rebel dog as well. So it shouldn't come to a surprise when we had to do some damage control with Gidget.

Like the time when I got the phone call from my husband:

"I think you need to put some stitches on Gidget." WHAT? Apparently the girls have gone wild; a play turned into a fight and Gidget got a deep cut right on her chin.

I just finished my ER rotation, so I was able to do laceration repairs (on humans, at least). Armed with my suture kit, supplies of benzocaine topical anesthetic gel, gauze pads, and benadryl pills, we attempted to stitch up Gidget's cut.... It didn't work. She was too scared to even get remotely drowsy with the benadryl, and the topical anesthetics wasn't doing it. And honestly, I was too emotionally attached to her to even attempt to stitch her up without any numbing meds/sedatives. What's our solution?

 

Yup, that's right. We super-glued the cut. It turned out really well, actually, better than I expected. You couldn't even see a scar on her chin.  SUCCESS!!

But Gidget wasn't going to stop there.

Two days ago, we found a nasty lump around her rear right leg. It was an abscess... a pus-draining abscess. Didn't know how it got there, but I'm sure it got worse really fast because she probably licked it like crazy. I refused to do an I&D (incision and drainage) but my husband was going to try anyway, mostly because we were worried of being stuck with a huge amount of vet medical bill that we couldn't really afford.

So here we were again, at a local drugstore, getting supplies. We had a scalpel (from my suture kit), more benadryl, more benzocaine, more gauze pads, a box of dog treats, and some saline spray. We then lured her into the bathroom, closed the door and started the I&D.

It worked.. in the beginning. Made a small cut and yellow/brownish, foul-smelling, pus started oozing out of her wound (note: next time, do this in a more airy room, or at least turn on the vents in the bathroom for goodness sake! the nasty smell started saturating the whole room). Then it stopped. No pus came out but we knew there was still a lot in there. After a few more failed attempts, and poor Gidget was shaking now, we stopped.

We took her to the vet the next day (I thought she would probably need a course of antibiotics anyway, and I didn't have that handy with me). They did a "clip and clean" there (which we assumed is a less-scary term of I&D), gave us some antibiotics and ibuprofen to take home. Oh, and of course the collar...

Poor baby, she must be miserable wearing that thing. She didn't even know what it is, or what it's for. But she wouldn't be the Gidget we know if this silly little thing was going to dampen her spirit at all:

That's the Gidget we know. Feisty little thing, mischievous and all, but we love her to death (and Daisy too, of course).

~josie