Poor Knight II

Song of the day: “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay. I never thought I’d say it, but there is a song from Coldplay that I like and this is it. Hah.

Okay, let me just tell you why I didn’t write yesterday, but after we got home from grocery shopping and big brother and I were about to head out into the yard for some serious relaxation, grandpa asked me to help him out in the old paddock for a moment. So I got Mosha, Sitabah and Dax through the little gate and was just about to pull the gate shut behind Knight II when, from the corner of my eye I saw his tail swing in-between the post and gate just when I pulled it shut.

He jumped, squealed, and right there, before my very eyes, I saw the slightly disfigured part of his tail pop right off. Iiiiiiih! Seriously. I made that indignant, girlish sound before I started swearing like a sailor. The tail immediately started dripping dark blood, and for a moment I was unsure what to friggin’ do. I let him through the outside gate, knowing full well that I’d have to get him to the vet, and tenant’s caretaker offered to stay with him while I ran down to get big brother from the greenhouse.

Then it was rushing back up to get my dogs locked up, only to be rushed up to the gate by grandpa who was telling me to get to Knight II who was starting to bleed more and more.
I tried, I really did, but Knight II wouldn’t let me grab hold of the bleeding stump until we had him in the car and he was starting to get a little faint. I had climbed into the back to sit with him and try to stem the bleeding, but while I did that, he’d blearily climbed to the front seat. So we ended up with Knight sitting beside big brother in the front, and me leaning over the back with a towel clamped firmly around the stump.

Blood was everywhere! A stream of it on the floor by my feet, a puddle on the seat beside me, and while we drove, the towel in my hands began to overflow. I was seriously nauseated and covered in the gooey stuff by the time we got to the vet, who took one look at the tail bleeding all over her floor before she left the folks she’d been talking to and wrapped her fingers around the severed piece. That is how we moved to the operating room, me holding Knight by the collar, big brother guiding his behind, and the vet trailing behind holding the tail as we weighed him and then injected him with a tranq.

It took a bit, but he did quiet down and slowly dropped off to sleep while a tourniquet was applied and I stroked his massive head. He made a few attempts to get up when the vet told me I could go and could come to get him in the morrow, but after only a bit of insistence it was agreed that I would come to get him around closing time and take him home with me.

We did agree to having the tail amputated at least halfway, since with Knight II’s tendency to wag his tail to bits in pure enthusiasm, having it heal from this would have been practically impossible.

So we went home, and while grandpa and caretaker offered to clean the car up a bit we headed inside to have a quick snack. What with grocery shopping just behind us, we hadn’t even had lunch yet, so ‘round seven in the evening, my stomach was balancing precariously between wanting to hurl or travel up in search of food itself. Hah.

Within no time at all we were back on the road to pick up. We arrived one minute short of closing time and headed on out to the back where Knight II was just coming to from the anesthetic. The vet’s assistant wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk, but when his gate was opened, he came tottering towards me like a lush…only to flop down on his butt again when he reached me.

Poor Knight II; so much leg and bone, and hardly any coordination to work them with. *sigh*
We ended up half carrying him back to the car, his tail only half the length and covered with a white bandage. I was advised to put a collar cone around his neck if I noticed him touching his tail, but knowing Knight the way I do, I decided not to take the risk and went for the collar the moment we got home…he wrecked it within six hours, by the way.

He spent the majority of the evening doped up on the couch, trying to keep track of me (doing edits) but finding himself incapable of keeping his eyes open for longer than five minute stretches. By the time we headed up to my cabin, he had regained some of his strength and dashed off with his usual enthusiasm…if with even less grace. *sigh*

I can honestly say that Knight II knows how to milk an ailment, for he was pitiful throughout the evening, and later when we were back in my cabin. He refused to lie down unless I was sitting beside him. He kept looking at me woefully, and when I didn’t give him the attention he craved he would try to go for the bandage and thus gain me full attention again. Smart big bastard. Hah.

The night was spent with him squeezed against me, of course, because he would not move an inch and I didn’t dare giving him the usual elbow in the ribs from fear of hitting the stump somehow.
Let’s just say that I was properly wrecked this morning and was more than happy to let the dogs out of the cabin. *sigh*

Of course he is once again on antibiotics…seriously, those things will be the death of him yet…and since he whined after knocking his tail into my leg, I decided to pop him a couple of pain pills as well.
He is still milking his affliction, but other than that things were back to normal today.

I spend the morning making cheesecake for mom’s birthday (which was yesterday, mind you), doing laundry, helping tenant (caretaker has a job again, since the day before yesterday), going into the yard to check up on everything we couldn’t check on yesterday, and then tiling my laundry corner. I know, that’s a lot of information to put in a single sentence, but what the heck.

Considering that the elevation we put in near the washing machine, was dry, big brother and I spent this afternoon putting in beautiful light blue mosaic tiles. It is not done completely yet, mind you, but I can see the somewhat “Turkish bath” idea coming along. Hah.

Well, that was it, I’ve got an edit to do, messages to check and…lots more. Gotta go.