Brian's dog (whom I want to kill)

The Friday of back to school week, Tiffany invited us over for dinner and some fun to celebrate the kids first full week of school. It started off great, but the night ended with me coming home to this- 

Those are the wooden blinds in my formal living room. There was another blind in the entry way that looked pretty much the same... Needless to say, these two were to blame-

 Actually, I really believe it was just Stormy. At about 3 it had been thundering, so I put on their thunder shirts, but when we left at 5, no more thunder. However, I left on the shirts, just in case. We were right across the street and when I'd come out of Tiffany's house to check on the kids who were all playing in the front yard, I could hear my dogs barking. I felt a little sad for them, as I figured they were barking because they wanted to come out and play too. The kids came home to get stuff a couple times, and let the dogs out to use the restroom each time and gave them treats afterwards. I came home once and all was fine. It was the second time I came home that I noticed the blinds... I could have shot them if I had a gun...

I suspect it was Stormy because she used to go a little nutty when Brian would deploy. Her hair would fall out and she would throw up in the middle of the night when she realized he wasn't coming home. The vet told me she is a pack animal and when one of her pack is gone, she gets anxious. And apparently eats wooden blinds. Brian has never deployed longer than 4 months previously and we had just crossed the 4 month marker for this deployment when the blind incident occurred. I think it was just her way of acting out... Boy was I furious!

5 days later, before I could even replace the blinds (our house looked like a house of horrors from the outside) I was folding laundry one afternoon when I noticed Stormy was bleeding. I thought "oh great, she's trying to pass the wooden blinds!" and instantly thought she might die. I went over to her and noticed that she was bleeding from her tail. And then I noticed something white- holy moly it was the bone in the tip of her tail!

I called the vet and took her right in...

He explained that she had somehow managed to "de-glove" the tip of her tail, which mean that she had de-skinned, or de-furred, her tail, leaving the bone exposed and would need an emergency amputation immediately. (I was in the shower prior to noticing her tail bleeding, and she was outside. I literally had no explanation to give the vet about how this could have happened...)

Bad news was that our vet could not fit Stormy in for surgery that day, so he was sending us to the local emergency vet for surgery. They were kind enough to wrap her tail, as I brought her in with blooding spraying everywhere- it was all over the walls of my house, car, the vet- and give her a cone of shame for the ride-

So now we are off to Vet #2. And to think I just wanted to replace the blinds on this day! Vet #2 tells me it will be $1,000 and requires an overnight stay- then has the guts to ask me to sign a form stating whether or not I want CPR used during surgery should it be needed. Ummmmm..... Not going to lie, my hand probably hovered over the NO box way longer than it should have. But I eventually checked YES.

I get home- still not sure whether to laugh or cry- and find MY sweet dog there waiting as she should be-

 I sent that picture to Brian, saying "THIS is how 12.5 yr old dogs should act!" He wrote back that he thought she looked guilty. Remember, we had NO idea what happened to Stormy's tail yet. The vet explained that often times this type of injury happens to cats, when they get their tail stuck in a door, or under a closing garage door. I was anxious to go outside and find the tail of blood to solve our mystery. There was blood, lots of droplets of blood- even on the siding of the house! But no real indicator of what happened...

At about midnight, 12 hours after I realized Stormy was bleeding, I talked to the vet and Stormy was headed into surgery. She explained that they would probably have to take most of Stormy's tail. I was numb by this point, so I said go for it!

The next morning when I was letting Belle outside, I figured out our mystery. I found Stormy's tail. It was light like a beacon of light glaring into my eyeballs and suddenly I was sad. I had had little compassion for Stormy up to this point, as even though the vet explained how painful of an injury this was, I still felt that (after the blinds) this was somehow probably self induced. But it wasn't... Here is what I saw-

 That is several inches of skin/fur stuck in our patio table. This isn't a new table, we have had it for years. This must have been just some freak incident after all. Maybe she was taking a nap under the table, got startled (we have a lot of bold squirrels) and got up quickly, when her tail got stuck?

You've heard of the hiker who got his arm stuck under a rock and had to amputate it himself? I feel like Stormy is the dog version of that story.

Before Stormy came home from surgery the next day, I went out an bought new blinds and hung them promptly, as I couldn't stand seeing them like that one more day.

Here is our sad Stormy post surgery-

And her sad little stump of a tail-

 It used to curl up and over her back, similar to this-

Not any more. 

Stormy had to wear the cone for 2 weeks. And she did remarkably well surprisingly! The walls and our shins, not so much...

5 days after this all happened, I went over to Tiffany's for a cup of coffee after getting the kids on the bus. I wasn't gone but maybe 20 minutes. And look what I came home to-

Cant you believe that? And that was with her cone collar on even! I was livid.

Thankfully, I had forgotten to put the trash out that morning and the old blinds were still in the trash can. I went and grabbed them to cut out all the good slats that were still left to replace the ones she had destroyed that morning! And I have a stock pile more now-

 Please God let Brian get home before I go through all those! Actually, I am not keeping the blinds raised during the day, hoping that will help. I haven't gone back over to Tiffany's yet... I'm worried that she might start chewing on the windowsill when I do.

Last week I took Stormy in to get her stitches out and had to chuckle to see her name on the "VIP" list at the vet-

For $1,000, she better be VIP for life