The One Where He Finally Hurt Himself

733:  The number of days it took Hurley to actually hurt himself.

Waiting for the vet to fix his ouchie

It wasn't that one time as a puppy he decided to play keep away with a shard of glass, the time he walked off a dock and decided to walk, not swim, along the bottom of the pond to shore, the dozen times he ate something potentially toxic, the time he hulked his crate, the time he destroyed the tent, the time he ran away on a camping trip, the time he got his jaw stuck in Maggie's collar, nor was it the time he got his tags stuck in the dishwasher. 

Hurley made it through all of those incidents with nary a scratch.

Nope, folks. The Badger was brought down by....wait for it...a dresser.  A boring old dresser he's laid in front of countless times.

The Hubster and I had drifted off to sleep Friday night only to be awoken by what sounded like (and later proved to be) a bucking bronco tearing wildly through the living room.  The most god-awful sound of Hurley desperately trying to get away from a dresser drawer that had somehow attached itself to him and was being dragged frantically throughout the house.  By the time we both rubbed the sleep out of our eyes and saw what was happening, Hurley had detached the drawer and was racing to the back door.  The Hubster let him out to do laps around the yard to exorcise the dresser demons while I cleaned up the mess of clothes strewn throughout the living room.  Miraculously the dresser drawer came through the incident unharmed and it was as I put it back in the dresser and walked through the living room that I noticed the spots of blood on the floor.

"He's bleeding!" I screamed at the Hubster.  We quickly ushered him back inside.  There was his outer back toe nail, dangling to the side, barely still attached and with the fleshy quick fully exposed, I mean entirely, completely, here's the quick if you ever wanted to know what it looked like, exposed.  Not having any styptic powder on hand (dog mom fail #1), I reached for the flour and attempted to pat it onto Hurley's bleeding toe.  In theory, flour can stop bleeding but apparently one must have a dog who is quiet and calm after an injury and not bucking like a bronco.  Hurley sure did enjoy licking that flour off the floor though.  Pressure, I thought.  I raced to the bathroom for our first aid kit and found gauze.  No medical tape or wrap though.  I raced to the dog room and checked the supplies in the dog cabinet.  More gauze.  No medical tape or wrap.  I raced back to the bathroom to check the medicine cabinet.  Ditto.  F'in crazy amounts of gauze but absolutely nothing to hold it in place.  Dog mom fail #2.

"You'll have to go out and get a gauze roll, non-sticky bandage roll thingy, and medical tape,"  I told the Hubster.  And then in our sleepy state, we spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out where we would find such supplies at midnight.  All the while, Hurley is standing there with his leg in the air dripping blood.

The Hubster finally on his way to get medical supplies, I tore the gauze into strips and gently wrapped it around Hurley's paw.  He struggled at first but soon calmed down after I repeatedly told him "I'm helping, Hurley. Mama's helping."  Because in times of crises, dogs fully understand English.  Understand he did, with the help of a little T-touch massage and a frozen Kong, and we remained curled up on the kitchen mat waiting for the return of the Hubster and the supplies.

Fact:  Bumble Bee bandage wrap makes ouchies better.  Wonder if they make a badger one?

While it had been relatively easy to softly wrap Hurley's paw in gauze and hold it gently in place, once the Hubster and the wound wrap arrived, Hurley's fear and pain came into play.  With supplies in hand, I wrapped, taped and then started to cover the gauze with the non-stick bandage rolly thing.  That's when he gave us his best bucking bronco impression.  He kicked and kicked and kicked and then raised both back legs high into the air.  He held his hand stand for what seemed like minutes while the stressed Hubster and I had a good laugh.  Bucking Bronco, indeed.

It took several tries and ultimately resorting to just letting him have at a jar of peanut butter before I was able to secure the non-stick bandage roll thingy on top of the gauze wrap.  We let Hurley hop around, kicking his bandaged paw out like a kangaroo boxer, and when he started to relax a bit, it was time to try to sleep.  I had to help his 95-lb-self into our bed and he crawled to the farthest corner, refusing to look in our direction.  He spent the night panting heavily.

Hurley wan Kenobi says "Tangle not with that dresser, I will"

Hurley tore off his nail so completely that they couldn't just clip off the damaged part and let it regrow.  Nope, they had to remove the entire nail and quick, or as the vet said "let his nail start from scratch", or as I called it "a toenail amputation".  His nail will grow back in 2-4 weeks and until then, it's no rough housing, a booty on whenever he's outside and lots of the cone of shame.

And a rather insane amount of being spoiled by his Mama.