The photo above, taken just this morning, Friday the 13th, shows a fall day at Crow cottage. What you see are lots of leaves. Leaves that were all over the grassy area just a few minutes previously, but mostly raked up by husband, who has the day off due to inclement weather. It's not raining, just blustery.

What you also see is Kip. My boy Kip. Kip the Lad. With his furs blowing in the November wind. Having fun playing out in the front garden, with his sister, Em, who is out of camera range above but can be seen below.

What you might not see, though, unless you look very closely at that picture above enlarged a bit (click on it), is a plastic sandwich bag taped over Kip's left rear foot. Ah, yes. The improvised doggie-bootie which is covering the bandage that he is wearing for the next few days.

He has a sore spot on one of his toe-pads there, it's raw and he constantly licks it, naturally, but it is not healing up since he is constantly licking it, so we had to resort to harsher measures and wrap the darn thing up in bandages.

Now Kippie is not a complainer. At this point, after two days of wearing the bandage, he doesn't even give it a second thought. We tape the sandwich baggie onto his foot just when he's out in the garden because there are areas of dirt out by the street (see the leaves piled high there? Paul is trying to cover up that area of dirt between the grass and the fence/street with them). If we didn't cover up the bandage with the baggie, he'd get it completely filthy-dirty-rotten and it just wouldn't work.

This is a real pain in the butt. They go out several times a day, too. Much less these last two days because I am also trying to work here and I can't keep jumping up and putting on that baggie every few minutes. Anyway, he's coping, and since I've just finished my work for today, I guess I am coping, as well.

Paul has been helping too since he can't get out lobstering due to the remnants of Hurricane Ida that has been creeping up the East Coast.

I know all about Elizabethan collars, too. That would be the last-last-last resort. We've been there/done those and do not want to go that route if we can help it. I'll never forget our darling Muffin Collie-Flower having to wear it after having breast cancer surgery - our house is tiny, and not a lot of room for ballroom dancing or collie-romping, and poor Muff would bump into something with every step she took! Not fun. And of course, we've had to do it with each neutering operation we've gone through with all the dogs, too. So keeping a close eye on Kips is how we'll manage this case. I just hope his toe-pad heals up in the near future.

Wait. Did I say FRIDAY THE 13TH up there?

E-Gads!

Cheers,

Bex