We stayed the night at Melinda and Laird's house Friday night. The first time we haven't slept in our motorhome since selling the house last November! They live at 7700 ft. elevation - my heart was beating like I was doing jumping jacks while I was lying in bed! The weather reports actually said it might snow. It didn't snow, but the wind blew with at least 60mph gusts. Yep, this is living in the mountains. They see bear often.

This is not a bear next to Odie ... this is Elwood, their German Shepard dog. 120 pounds of playful, friendly, dog. He and Odie got along just fine, he was even gracious enough to share some of his food.


But, when they got into a little tussle outside, Odie ended up on the bottom. We were able to grab Odie and Jim held him up high on his shoulder for a few minutes. Odie was a little dusty and shaken, but we thought he was fine until we saw the blood on Jim's shirt. Then we saw the small gash in his side.

So, what should we do? Would rushing him to a vet (at least 15 miles away) be overkill? Well, let's just watch and see. We cleaned him up and he seemed to be OK, he didn't even hold a grudge with Elwood. We used hydrogen pyroxide to clean it and my favorite, Lavender oil, to disinfect and help the healing process. But, by evening he had gotten stiff and sore to the point that he couldn't walk. hmmm, if I was bruised and sore, I'd take some aspirin. I wonder if that's ok for dogs? I googled the Internet for dogs and aspirin and up pops my answer. As long as you don't give more than 5mg per pound of dog - it's a great thing to do. I also googled for vets in the area and found an emergency one that would be open on Sunday if he was any worse in the morning. How DID we ever live without the Internet?

So, now it's Sunday. I don't think he had a very restful night and he's not his normal, bouncy self, but he ate his food, his nose is cold and wet, he went for a short walk and the wound looks like it's closing and healing already. We'll just have to start calling him 'scrappy'.