A couple years ago Stacker was unfortunate enough to push Travis to the breaking point. The signs were all there. Muzzle punches to the head and neck were the obvious ones, along with body posturing and psychotic barking episodes. Well, that "final straw" put Stacker in the ER clinic to get his face stitched back together. Travis had one superficial scratch. Stacker is a wuss. My sister, Beth, appropriately coined the term FrankenStack after that event. Very fitting. Swollen head, lines of stitches here and there across his face. All we needed was the mob of angry villagers and we'd be set.
It has been suggested he's bipolar. Maybe he is suffering from folie à deux all on his own?
Last Thursday we removed his bandages to see if he had full range of motion in his toe. No such luck. Time for that toe to go. The following morning I called Lake City Animal Hospital to set up a surgery appointment with Dr. Toby Carmichael. The adoption group I volunteer with, Southeastern Greyhound Adoption (SEGA), leases ten kennel runs from Toby in the back of his clinic to keep recent track retirees until they are adopted. He's also been our on-call vet when we've held lure coursing trials nearby in Cartersville. To say he knows Greyhound toes is a gross understatement.
To my surprise, Toby was available that Friday. I dropped Stacker off just before lunch and picked him up mid-afternoon. Everything went very well.
Hey Peanut, tell your Mom that this is the part where she may get a little squeamish...
Time for post-op pics!!
Dr. Carmichael did a great job. Stacker has been putting weight on this foot for the past few days now. We have a few more weeks to go before the stitches come out. My sister has decided that Stacker needs a new name, or at least an addition.
She is convinced that Stacker is the equivalent of Mr. Potato Head, complete with removable parts. She further proved her point when our sister, Anna, emailed to let us know she's having to amp another part of her Greyhound's tail due to another episode of happy tail.No experience like this would be complete without some tragedy. Unfortunately, despite a sliding economy, I could not convince one single taxidermist to preserve his toe so I could turn it into a keychain.
7 comments:
Poor, Stacker! :-(
As Dad says, "Parts are parts."
Fire says that she will race Stacker again and offer him a handicap this time. She may not have all of her tail, but she still has her toes.
Hope he gets well soon! I may just have to sneak him a piece of turkey.
Wow, you almost can't tell there is supposed to be a toe in that tiny space.
Hope he gets to feeling better soon.
Get well, Frankenstack! I'm sure you will heal in no time with that wonderful Mom you have. Tending to and rebandaging your leg everyday. What a lucky dog! :-)
Jen
Poor Stacker. Feel better soon!!
From one bi-polar pup to another Pepsi sends a very YAPPIE "get better soon" to Stacker. Funny idea about the keychain;-p I never could figure out why carrying a rabbit's foot was supposed to be good luck- obviously it wasn't so lucky for the rabbit....
I hope you seriously tried to taxiderm that toe...I would totally do that. I have a necklace made of G's teeth from when he had orthodontia, and it's my pagan good luck charm. I think Stacker's toe would have been a great luck charm, but I just had 3 drinks with dinner...what do I know? :-)
Addie
Addie - I called three places. Of course, every single one of them thought I was saying "doe" instead of "toe". There's just no love out there for a man wanting to hold on to a toe. And, if I were G I'd seriously worry about having my head shrunk. Strange voodoo you got cookin' over there....
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