Dogs and Snow

There were two things on my mind today - the dogs and the snow. Maybe it's because we were just outside, where I let Cruiser off the leash. He was running around having a blast in the 3"-4" of snow outside. He loves running so much and being cooped up in an apartment all day gives him an excess of energy he wants to run off. Tonight we let Bow off his leash also and he was running around. Cruiser bounds around in leaps and sprints, and Bow runs with little steps, all four legs moving at different times, it's kind of funny to watch. Since there was no snow on the ground this morning, and all this snow came down since this afternoon, I received a call saying we have a two hour delay for going to work tomorrow - sleeping in! Woohoo!!

...Dogs...
When we went to Minnesota we put both dogs in a kennel recommended by one of our neighbors. When we picked them up, Cruiser had all this stuff gooped up on a huge scrape by his eye, they told us that the dogs got in a fight with each other and Cruiser was scratched, but he saw a vet and the vet prescribed an iodine based antibiotic. When we got home and gave them baths (they were a little stinky from being in a kennel for 10 days), I discovered a few other long scratches on Cruiser. He was clearly in a dog fight. Since 1) Cruiser and Bow have never fought each other in the 5 years they've been together, and 2) they didn't charge us for the vet bill -- I'm convinced they put a third dog into the kennel with them and the dogs fought. Since other dogs were multiples in the kennels (our neighbor's dog was there with 2 other dogs) this is clearly a normal practice. Looking closer at Bow we saw he had scrapes on his nose and lip (like his lip was caught when he was biting something) so we suspect the other dog went after Cruiser and then Bow weighed into the frey...

Five days later, I noticed Bow was scratching his nose and it was swollen. Later that day Brad noticed his ears were all swollen. If you felt his ear flaps they were 3 x thicker than normal. Since it was late Friday on a holiday weekend, and everything we read on the internet indicated this was due to an alergic reaction, we rushed out and got him some benadryl. The swelling started coming down and is much better, though we need to keep putting neosporin on his nose - he's scraped it raw - to keep the itching down. Poor dog!

As to that kennel - we're never going back!