Adventures with a broken knee cap

In the old days when I had an intact knee cap, the main meal for the dogs was roasted chicken which I would acquire from the local Stater Bros., but with my knee cap no longer intact, I’ve been resorting to canned food.  Ben and Jessica like it fine, but Duffy is fussy.  Sometimes he likes canned tuna.  And of course Jessica likes to lick the empty cans.  Ben, with the longer tongue has been finding food at the bottom of the cans that Jessica can’t reach.  On November 5th (2019), for reasons unclear, Ben crunched up a tuna can in his mouth which started bleeding; which he thought to cure by licking his legs.  When I saw the carpet around his licked legs red with blood, I got a wet wash cloth and cleaned it.  Ben though moved to another place in the carpet and continued on. 

I have had plenty of experience with bleeding in my own mouth and so thought that if I could get Ben to quit licking his leg and calm down the bleeding would stop, but he wouldn’t quit; so I decided to take him to the vet.  I put him in the Jeep and went back into the house to take some quick swipes with wet wash cloths at my bleeding carpet.  I also added some spot cleaner to the messes.

When I went back to the Jeep, Ben was sitting calmly in the back seat, no longer licking himself and no longer bleeding.  I decided to take him to an area at the river where there were shade trees and where we could walk gently about for a short while.  Maybe he would even feel like lying on the sand; which he did. 

Since I was more concerned about Ben’s bleeding than my balance, I stumbled about quite a bit, but never actually fell down. 

On the way home I stopped at Rite Aid and bought some vanilla ice cream and at home put some in a bowl and spoon fed it to Ben – a home remedy for bleeding mouths and settling one’s stomach if one has swallowed blood.  I don’t recall whether I made up this home remedy or heard it from someone.  In any case Ben liked the ice cream. 

When we got back to the house, Jessica and Duffy were delighted to see that Ben was okay.  And he graciously accepted their attention.  I spent some more time trying to clean the carpet & then joined Ben in taking a nap.  We woke after a couple of hours.  I gave them Alaskan Salmon and Chicken Jerky treats.

It is 9:40 p.m.  The dogs are all sleeping, but I’m wide awake.  J   I’ll work some more on the carpet tomorrow.  L