Monty's Latest Visit to the Emergency Vet (Not for the Squemish)

Monty is a clumsy dog. I think I've talked about this before...how he runs around the yard in the rain and slips and falls. And how he jumps up and down like a jumping bean, only to slip on the kitchen floor and fall like Bambi on the ice. Oh, and that one time when he tried to jump into the back of our car before the door was open and whacked his spine on the corner of the door...bruising his back. So right now, Monty is walking around with a bandage on his back right paw...and I'll tell you why.

Thursday night, Monty was running around the yard like he always does, and when he came back into the house, puddles of blood formed around his back paw. I tried to get a hold of said paw, but he kept moving away from me...walking around the kitchen...slipping and sliding on his own blood. He pretty much turned my kitchen into a scene from a horror movie (I have pictures, but I've refrained from posting them). I tried to catch up to him so I could put pressure on his paw, which was literally spurting blood as I called the vet to find out what else I was supposed to do. Not easy to make phone calls while you're putting pressure on a paw spurting blood. I finally got the blood to stop after applying pressure for about 15 minutes and Monty laid down on the floor for about a half hour after that. When I walked away from him in the direction of his food...a hungry Monty jumped up to his feet and whoosh...more blood. Spurt...spurt...spurt. Back to the kitchen that I had already cleaned once for more bloodbath. It stopped again with additional pressure. The vet had previously instructed me to put pressure to stop the bleeding and put him in his crate for the night so he would be lying down and that I should bring him to a vet in the morning if it continued to bleed. To make a long story short...it did continue to bleed throughout the night...we brought him in first thing in the morning, and about $300 later, we discovered that he punctured an artery in his paw.

So after spending all day Friday at the Emergency Vet, Monty is now lying comfortable on his pillow with his paw bandaged, complete with antibiotics and pain meds in his system. He's tired...he's had a long weekend.