lucas seems to have an ear problem and/or skin problem at the moment. first of all, the tips of both his ears have some sort of hair loss that i think might be caused by some sort of fungus/virus/strangeness. it never really seems to bother him much - what i mean by that is that i've never really seen him scratch at it. therefore i didn't, and still don't, feel the need to call the vet about it. besides, the vet has seen these spots before. it was a while ago the and they tested him for for what they thought might be demodectic mange. it came back negative and they sent me on my way. but now here we are present day and lucas has been scratching the living day lights out of his ears. so badly that he has open sores on the backs of his ears and near his temples. a friend of mine said it could be allergies - her boxer suffers from allergies and when i described the situation she said is sounded familiar - i'm willing to bet she is right and that it is allergies. plus, i vaguely recall hearing the vet throwing that term around at a visit once. anyway. i will figure that out soon. on with the post!
here is a picture of one of his open sores... be sure to click on the photo to see the full size image. you can really see it better that way.
the scratching started a week before we went on vacation. at that time, there was only one minor scratch area - no bloody open sores like we see today. by the time we got home from vacation he had 4-5 semi scabby, semi gooey sores. he was a mess! i did the best i could to clean him up - and our carpets, too! but i knew that wasn't going to be good enough. i was going to need more stuff. so i went out to petsmart and bought a serious ear cleaner solution (serious enough that it cost me $32 for a bottle!!!), an ointment to help soothe and protect the open sores and an inflatable protective collar - we call it the donut. here is lucas wearing the donut...
lucas was less than thrilled to be wearing this thing - just look at his face in that last picture. but i didn't care how sad and pathetic he looked, that donut was going to do its job. and it appeared that is was working. he couldn't reach his ears to scratch anymore and things started to heal. i felt good about all the money i blew at petsmart. i think i spent something like $90-$100 on this stuff... well. $20 of that was actually on a big bag of rawhide knots to help cheer him up ;-)
mike and i were skeptical on how long this donut thing would last before lucas destroyed it. the situation seemed to go well when we were around to supervise things on sunday. monday - unsupervised - they were still good. lucas and the donut were in tact. the same went for tuesday. then it all came to an end. on wednesday when mike got home, he found lucas all gay and happy, cheerily running around the house without the donut! it was laying in the dog bed - busted up and useless - destroyed by lucas, the destructive dog. you can see the donut and what used to be the loops where you put the actual collar through to keep the donut on and in place below...
grrrrrrr. i'm not sure what lucas was doing that caused this to happen. he could have been scratching furiously. although i saw no scratch marks on the blue material. he could have been rough housing with hennessey. maybe he was actually attempting to do just what you see above. who knows. unfortunately, i cannot return this to petsmart. maybe i could. but i don't want to try. i feel as if that would be like trying return a chew toy that got chewed on too much for my own liking... i did, however, write to the company that makes these inflatable protective collars... i played the "disappointed customer" card. i spent $36.99 on that donut! it's not too much to ask for it last longer than two days, is it? there have got to be other dogs out there that are just as destructive - if not worse - that lucas, right?
and that's the beat on the street when it comes to lucas, the self-destructive, destructive dog.
oh. real quick. before i end this post, i want to get in a couple of photos of super sweet hennessey. poor dog. she has been feeling neglected these last few days. mostly due to all the attention lucas is getting from me cleaning his ears and applying wound treatments. tuesday, she wanted attention so bad she actually sat through an ear cleaning of her own with zero resistance - she hates getting her ears cleaned! and yesterday, during one of lucas' ear cleanings, i witnessed her give lucas the stink eye. it was hilarious. i tried to capture it in a photo. just look...
hennessey is one of the best dogs anyone could ever have. she is smart, pretty and well behaved. she listens to what you say and does what you asks her to. she even watches baseball with her daddy. she snuggles like a champ and has no weird skin conditions... i could go on forever. she is my little princess dog...
look how precious
..............jfk................
I agree on Hennessey being one of the best. dogs. ever
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