July 9, 2017

White Dog interrupted our Lazy Sunday morning, post opera night ritual by nodding at Trixie. "Better take a look at the Big Girl," she said. "There is something wrong with her shoulder." Immediately sirens flashed and attention shifted. Steve went over to where she had just settled on the kitchen floor.

"She is all scraped up. Her skin is torn and she is REALLY raw." he reported.  "Oh Tirx! What have you done?" I asked her and then asked Steve,"You don't think somepup was horsing around with her and got mean," I asked hoping for a no. "It looks more that she rubbed against something harsh; there is not indication of a bite or scratch." Mentally I sighed, glad that no one who need correction.

"Wonder what happened." Steve applied ointment and suggested we keep an eye on her actions to maybe find a clue.

We discovered that our Girl, whose gait is sometimes a bit wobbly and who has to dip low to come and go, was dragging her shoulder along the frame of the dog door when she goes in or out, thus rubbing the shoulder bloody.

The spot was in the middle of her shoulder muscle, an almost impossible place to wrap or effectively bandage. AND it appeared that her other should also had some rubbing at the mirrored same spot.

Wrapping? Behind her front leg was too far; over and under the body did not cover the shoulder; around chest and back of leg was up too high. Taped gauze covering? Nope, she would just scratch it off or it would rub off in the entry/exiting. Padding on the dog door? No, way to wrap the metal without interfering with the door's opening and closing. T-Shirt under her harness? A thought but not much shoulder padding.

White Dog, the engineer, and the architect sat down to puzzle it out.  WD dragged out an old t-shirt as Bella watched me sketch an idea. Steve trimmed the shirt into a long large rectangle; folded into multiple thicknesses it provided a nice soft cushion that was pliable.

"What if we went under the chest piece of her harness and under each leg strap then connected the wrap on top?" We tried that with a not-soo- patient Trixie but the side drape of the bandage rode up and revealed the wounds.

Steve went out to the car and all of the WDA ran to windows to see what he was doing. He brought our ever useful jar of zip-ties and selected two of the shortest ones. Then he wrapped the zip around the harness strap and under the bandage and pulled it tight so the cloth was locked in exactly the right place. He repeated his clever solution on the other side.

"Now we need her to test it for us," I said but White Dog indicated that we should not worry. Sure enough the minute Steve stopped fussing over her, Trix jumped off of the couch and headed for the dog door. Steve and WD followed and watched. WD ran back to tell me it seemed to work while Steve (with the company of Zso and Sachi) waited on the bed to watch for Trixie's return.

She came back in and plopped on her side in the kitchen. WD went to check...still good. "Looks like we have the problem solved," she proudly reported.

Opal suggested that a round to treats were in order to celebrate the saving of Trixie's skin.