

Compass Editor
Published Friday, January 12, 2001

Brian Thompsonstaff biosend email


Dog, pshaw! She's my kid. My child. My doofus hound. She's the only "person" I know who can give me eyes and make me say, "All right, you want ice cream for dinner, you got it. And how about a steak on top?"

But like all children, she is always getting into things. You parents know where I'm coming from. "Things" are all types of scrapes (fights with Rottweilers), ailments (chronic ear infections from swimming) and unexplained frequent incidents (or UFIs, for short).

For instance, the other day I was looking for cracks in my house to spray foam insulation into. I do this on a regular basis because my house is settling like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and every couple of weeks opens up like the San Andreas Fault.

Now the foam insulation does three things: 1. Keeps just a little cold air outside where it belongs; 2. Adds a little more strength and rigidity to walls that are so termite-eaten, friction is the only thing keeping them up; and 3. Gets everywhere and makes my house look like mysterious space goo is taking over the joint.

You probably know where this is going. 'Ole shaggy ears waddles into the room and, for who knows what reason, dips an ear into a fresh pile on the floor like she's dipping a nacho chip in salsa.

I don't know why she does this, and I certainly don't know why I completely freak out, shouting things "Goodness me, it's going to eat through to what little brains you have left!"

You know what this does to little animals. They run for cover, first cowering on the sofa, next brushing up against every article of furniture in the house that we have carefully avoided getting foam insulation on and then settling on the guest bed.

Cordon off the world, my dog's loose. And she's well insulated.

This past weekend, and it's always on a weekend, she thought she would top herself. We still don't know what happened, except to say that at some point we noticed her nose had grown three sizes. The pup, no kidding, looked like a snub-nosed pit bull. She looked like she had an orange growing out the top of her beak. She looked, as ridiculous as this sounds, like W.C. Fields.

I surmised, because she does this, she had been running up the back steps pretty fast, slipped and plowed her nose into one of the stairs. So we figured we would watch it.

The next morning it began oozing. It was oozing all sorts of things, and we're not talking foam insulation.

Good parents we are, we freaked out and screamed things like, "Good golly, it's going to eat through what little brains you have left."

And with that, we threw her in the car and rushed her to the vet. When your baby looks like an oozing W.C. Fields, you react quickly.

It's a dilemma what really happened. Chase sees with her nose, following it about the yard like a blind man follows his cane. Could be she was "looking" in a hole that just happened to be the home of an unsuspecting spider. Could be she had a close encounter with a bee. Could be she is just prone to freak accidents and oozing incidents, and I'm just going to have to get used to it.

Whatever it is, she's recovering nicely. She has more medication than most dogs see in a lifetime and the nose is getting smaller -- small enough she can fit through the door again.

If only little animals -- our children -- would just learn the lesson that you must be careful sticking important instruments, like ears and noses, where where they don't belong.