The tail end

Chester and I take a road less traveled these days. We avoid the park and other dogs and children and cross the street for oncoming walkers. None of this has anything to do with COVID 19 or the new restrictions or social distancing and everything to do with the tail end of my dog – more specifically, the lack of tail end.

We are eleven days post surgery – Chester should have been getting his stitches out on day fourteen like any normal dog would two weeks after an operation- but he isn’t. We are probably looking at another week or two in a collar because Chester is Chester and nothing is ever normal with him.

His incision was healing nicely five days in, the vet removed the bandages from the stump and revealed the reason we are now keeping to ourselves. The stump is about four inches long and currently fur-less – if a human exposed himself like this I’m fairly certain he would be tossed in the slammer.

The cone, the stump and stitches would be almost laughable were Chester not in pain but he is and therefore he is drugged to the teeth. I’m not sure if he reacted poorly to one of his many medications or ate a poison bug – we took a hurried trip to the emergency vet for antihistamines last week and added yet another pill bottle to our growing collection on the kitchen counter.

He was being super good about leaving his tail alone until he wasn’t. He is now sporting two new stitches, a new bandage and a new pool noodle collar in addition to his well worn cone. I’m not sure what else could pop up to complicate this adventure.

Chester is worth his weight in gold in more ways than one. People think I keep saving him from himself but the truth is I keep saving him for me. There will be a line for Chester one day – a point where I won’t make him pull through another disaster – but his tail end is not it.

We will come out of hiding one day soon and I trust the frisbee dog will rock his short new look. For now we will keep to ourselves and stay off the beaten path.