The Badger Kit: How an Overzealous Dog Mom Creates Her Own Pet First Aid Kit

I have a confession to make.  Until this week, I did not have a proper first aid kit on hand for the dawgs.  I mean, we had most of the supplies that we needed in various spots throughout the house.  Until we used them up and didn't have what we needed for Hurley's recent injury.  It only took a single frantic midnight first aid shopping trip to make me realize how woefully unprepared I have been for Badger emergencies.

One of the first things I did after last weekend's mishap was to go out and put together a proper first aid kit, which I have affectionately dubbed "The Badger Kit". 

You can purchase first aid kits for pets and for most households, these are sufficient.  I, however, have a home with 3 big dawgs, one of which is the Badger.  I knew that our gauze & bandaging needs would far exceed the normal amounts provided in a decent first aid kit so I decided to put together our very own.

While most of the supplies that you need are pretty basic, when you put together your very own Badger kit, it's helpful to ask yourself the following:

Do I have supplies to clean, treat & wrap the most common injuries?  For our dogs, tail & paw injuries are the most likely, followed by bug bites, scrapes & abrasions and foreign object ingestion. 

Are there any other injuries/first aid needs that reflect the activities my family partakes in?  For instance, I will be adding aloe gel to our first aid kit as camping with the dawgs is something we often do, which means our crew is at a higher risk for campfire burn injuries. 

Do I have enough of the consumable first aid supplies for all of my pets?  This question was why I decided to create our own first aid kit instead of purchasing a pre-made one.  What if a bear attacks us on one of our camping trips and more than one dog is injured?  (Yes, these are the crazy scenarios I play out in my head when planning the requirements of a proper Badger kit).  For our family, having a large supply of gauze & bandage wrap was the most important part of our first aid kit.

Because I intend to bring our fancy new Badger Kit with us on all trips & outings with the dawgs, I also included items like bug spray & natural flea repellants that would be useful on those trips and where it would also make logical sense to include them with first aid supplies. 

Here are the contents of our Badger First Aid Kit:

Hand Sanitizer & Alcohol Wipes (for sanitizing our hands prior to treating any injury)
Latex Gloves
6 Rolls of 3" Gauze
2 Rolls of 2" Gauze
3X3 Gauze Pads
3 Rolls of Adhesive Tape
6 Rolls of non-adhesive bandage wrap
Scissors
Tweezers
Rubber Syringe
Ear Cleanser
Hydrogen Peroxide
Wound Wash (I have a saline spray and will be getting Vetericyn as well, which is made specifically for pets and functions as an anti-septic spray)
Bag Balm (for treating cracked paws or scraped noses)
Nail Clippers
Styptic Powder
Dog Booties (we were given IV bags for this purpose from our vet plus we purchased some general purpose dog booties - they are extra large but will work nicely for an additional layer of protection over a bandaged paw on any of our 3 dawgs)
Natural Bug Spray
Natural Flea & Tick Spray
Aloe Gel
Calming Treats/Tinctures (it can be a challenge to keep your pet calm during an injury so including calming treats, sprays or tinctures is an essential part of a pet first aid kit, in my opinion)
Low Dose Aspirin
Benadryl
Herbal Healing Cream/Gel (or for you non-hippies out there, Neosporin will work just fine)
E-cone
Cotton Balls & Q Tips
Pet First Aid Book

Do you have a first aid kit for your pet?  If so, is there anything you include in your kit that has not found a home in the Badger Kit?

Hurley, Model Patient?

Hurley has proven himself to be the model patient following last weekend's toe injury.  I was pretty concerned about all the pill-taking, bootie-wearing, cone shaming & bandage wrapping that would have to occur during his healing process but I shouldn't have been worried.  Hurley Badger Don't Care 'bout nothing but his mama taking care of him and patiently allows all of the above to happen without a protest.  I think he's just a giant baby who loves being babied by his mama.

This is Hurley on drugs.  He just sits and stares at nothing.  For hours.

We have had a few hiccups in his recovery.  First, the saddest event in the history of the Badger:  Hurley has taken to not finishing his meals!  Clarification:  he won't finish his meals if they contain any kibble. If it's 100% raw or home-cooked, then the Badger has no objections to the taste of the antibiotics & pain pills in his dinner.  I almost cried the first time he walked away from a half-full bowl.  Hurley not being crazy about food?  He must not be feeling well!  So I spoon fed him and wrapped the remaining pills in raw meat.  He was ecstatic about finishing dinner like this and now has taken to licking pills clean and waiting for his raw meat.  Spoiled, maybe?  Little does he know that the last of the pills were today and he'll be back to normal half-kibble, half-raw/home-cooked meals. And that Miss Sadie will be allowed to finish his dinner from here on out should he choose to be picky. 

Is that Hurley's dinner I smell? 

The other hiccup to his recovery happened on Wednesday.  Twas the first morning that I let Hurley out in the backyard to do his business and didn't actively watch him.  Of course, this would be the one morning where he kicked the bootie off and proceeded to somehow re-injure his toe.  Said injury produced 100 times the amount of blood as his initial injury. I could not get the bleeding to stop, freaked out about the puddles of blood all over my house and rushed him to the vet.  It's a good thing because as the vet said in reference to the pool of blood filling his bootie "Oh wow.  Just wow.  That is not a normal amount of blood."  When the Badger hurts himself, he certainly doesn't do it half-ass.

More Stoned Sedated Hurley.  He might be contemplating chewing on his antler.   Or he could just be sitting there, contemplating nothing.  We don't really know what goes on in the head of stoned Hurley.

So he's got to wear a bandage a little bit longer and this Mama will not be laxing in his supervision again.  We're hoping for an uneventful remainder of his recovery.  We've got to get through the weekend with a bandaged foot and then the next 2 weeks without him bumping it into anything.  Wish us luck!