Sulking

So in keeping with the photo theme I decided to post this:

This is my dog sulking after an attempted home nail clip. My parents always wait for me to come home as the dog has black nails, and I, as the "professional" nail clipper in the family, am supposed to be able to handle this. My formerly friendly lab who would be more likely to lick an intruder to death turned into a growling, teeth-baring monster that required three people to hold down after the first crunch of the nail clippers. She also has a great trick of rolling onto her back and frantically paddling all four feet in the air while snapping her jaws manically at any hand attempting to grab her collar. And, of course, I proved her point that it was a terrible ordeal to be avoided at all costs when I managed to make one of her nails bleed...and bleed...and bleed...

In NZ we had great little silver nitrate sticks that instantly cauterised any bleeding nail, but I have as yet been unable to find these in Aussie and still don't know what vets over here use. When I arrived I got the nurses to order some kind of cautery stick in and I ended up with what looked like a lip-balm stick that had been left in the freezer for three weeks - the label said something about "minor cuts & abrasions & shaving cuts". It was useless. I had to put pressure on the offending nail with a tissue while the dog growled and swore at me from under the strangle-hold my father had her in. After five minutes I thought it had clotted & shoved her outside where she spent the next hour doing her lifeguard duty around the pool while mum swam, leaving little spots of blood all over the white paving stones lining the pool. A little later my sister yelled from in the lounge, "She's still bleeding!" and so she was. Thank goodness we had recently replaced the carpets with tiles.

So I had to resort to bandaging her foot, which resulted in her sulking in one spot for the next few hours and refusing to eat dinner. I took the bandage off but she is still not talking to me.

Next time I'm taking some sedatives home. On second thought, next time they can take her to the local vet clinic and let them deal with her, where she will probably be perfectly behaved and the vet will wonder why on earth I didn't clip her nails in the first place!