Wuff with the Smooth: Don’t look back in anger

To paraphrase the great Mark Twain, if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

I was thinking of Mr Twain on that Saturday evening when Waffle went off the head howling.

QUICK RECAP

I had lit the barbecue and was enjoying a beer when Waffle started up an I’m-in-agony howl from the bottom of the garden. Upon examination, his rear paw hadn’t been cloven in two (which would have explained the howling) – nevertheless – he continued his keening, especially when I rolled him onto his belly to further examine the paw.

“Cha-chit-tat-tee-aaooooOOOOO!” Waffle wailed, as if channelling the spirit of the great Geronimo.

Now, as you might imagine, Waffle’s incessant, high-pitched wailing was doing nothing for the family’s collective calm but rather – and I noticed this of the little humans especially – people were looking increasingly worried. Anna in particular looked suddenly very pale.

“Cha-chit-tat-tee-aaooooOOOOO!”

I re-examined the seemingly intact foot and poked through his thick hair for good measure, though for the life of me, I couldn’t see anything wrong. If anything – and this is really saying something – the howling was only increasing in volume.

Going back to Mark Twain, I was thinking if there was something really bad here and if I discovered it, should I just rip it out without preamble or informing the anxious on-lookers? If there were two, should I rip out the biggest one first?

“Cha-chit-tat-tee-aaooooOOOOO!”

“Turn it up to eleven there, why don’t you,” I said to Waffle, but no-one knew what I was on about.

You know the way the old saying goes: The first sign of madness is having hairs growing on the palms of your hands. The second sign is looking for them.

I’m not sure what it says about Waffle but the palms of his paws are hairy beyond belief – which was why it was so difficult to check said paws for foreign objects.

Combing through the hairs as gently as possible, I eventually began to wonder if a trip to the vet might be in order because as far as I could see, there was no frog to eat. Then Anna exclaimed, “I can see it!”

“See what?” I asked, doubtful.

Without replying, Anna took to her heels and ran off, returning a minute later and hunkering down beside me. She was holding a tiny pair of tweezers.

“Is it a thorn?” I asked the would-be vet.

“Hang on. You hold him I’ll hold the paw.”

Crouching, head down and parting hair with one hand, Anna poked the tweezers into the pads on his hoof – looking for, I couldn’t see.

“Yes!” she said, almost immediately and she held up the tweezers which contained… nothing?

“Cha-chit-tat –.” The howling stopped.

Focusing my old eyeballs with what I hoped was electron microscope intensity, I was just about able to discern the tinniest little spike betwixt the tweezers, from what I could only assume must have been a thistle.

And how Anna had been able to see it in the first place amidst all of that hair was beyond me.

“Well done,” I said, astonished (and much relieved) that the shrapnel, though miniscule, had finally been surgically removed.

For his part, Waffle was… overjoyed? Alas, not.

The hound, though mostly silent, began sniffing and licking at the injured paw, with only the odd wee high-pitched chirp thrown in to let us know that his injury was having a lasting, traumatic effect.

I’m sure that I speak for all involved when I say we were hugely relieved that the tiny thistle spike had finally been withdrawn and (for me especially) that the howling had stopped.

I clapped Waffle on the shoulder and told him he was a brave boy and that the worst of it was over.

And then a strange thing happened.

Still grievously injured, Waffle began dragging himself up the garden as though neither of his hind legs were working. For the briefest of moments I wondered if we might have to buy him one of those little wheely things that dogs use when they’re been injured and their back legs no longer function. Then I remembered that it was just a thistle spike in his paw and no, he hadn’t been shot in the spine at close range.

“What are you at, dog?” I asked, unceremoniously.

Waffle looked at me for a long moment and then, seemingly cognisant that he had been chastised and would thus no longer garner any lingering sympathy, clambered to his feet and trotted off.

“Dirty faker!” I called after him. But he didn’t even look back.