Carol let Ray out this morning (Jan 13) so that he could complete his pee ’n’ poop routine. I generally take care of the “front end” as I am up and moving before Carol. That gives her the honor of taking care of the “rear end”!
I was going through some of your Posts when I heard an urgent call from the kitchen. Something about blood all over the floor! Needless to say I dashed through expecting to see either Carol and/or Ray dripping blood … but no. What I did see were just drops of blood all over the floor. It soon became clear that they were not coming from Carol.
She then explained that Ray had been in a fight with a squirrel (and killed it). In the absence of any obvious cuts, I started to check his feet thinking he may have cut them somehow in the fight. I had just picked up his front paw when another drop of blood fell from his nose. Now the question arose, did he just get a nose bleed, or was he bitten or scratched just inside his nose?
Two questions immediately crossed my mind:
How does one get a 75lbs Ray to lay down; elevated its head, and lay still while a cold wet cloth is draped over his nose, and his nostrils plugged with Kleenex to soak up blood? It has always worked for my occasional nose bleed. Answer: With Ray… you don’t.
Should we be concerned that he had possibly been bitten by the squirrel?
The solution on both accounts was to call the vet and, while talking to them, his nose bleeding stopped! They advised that the prospect of problems from a bite was minimal based on his history of shots, but we should just monitor him for anything unusual.
The next job was to clean up the “debris” in the garden! Carol was cleaning up the floor so I went outside and quickly found the unfortunate squirrel who had apparently displayed seriously (and fatally) poor judgement. Considering what it had presumably been through, it was in remarkably good shape. If I didn’t know better, it could have been laying on its side and sound asleep!
One dead squirrel was added to next week’s garbage pickup, which left me wondering how I could stop Ray from concentrating on that area of garden. There could be all sorts of squirrel traces in the snow and on the grass (we had a little snow overnight), and Ray still needed to go out and poop.
The solution which came to mind (one of those knee-jerk impulsive reactions), was to boil up some water; pour it over the area in question which would hopefully breakdown any liquids and allow them to be absorbed to some degree by the ground. The second stage was to shovel the lawn such that I ended up with a pile of snow over the spot in question. I was lucky in that while shoveling the lawn, I came across a Ray pee spot so it was hoped that the end result (boiling water, lots of snow, and Ray’s scent) would not generate too much interest for Ray!
It worked quite well. Of course he went straight to that area and sniffed around, but made no attempt to dig into the snow pile. He eventually wandered away and pooped!
Now all I have to do is prepare for the inevitable comments from the neighbors about me shoveling snow off the back lawn! Snow shoveling around here is usually limited to driveways and sidewalks!
I confess I’m not a fan of ‘tree rats’ but will keep fingers and paws crossed Ray is none for the worse. Way to go, Ray…OLS!! (one less squirrel) 🐾
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Good job Ray. You should get a medal for being injured in the line of duty!
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Hi Lexi – I do believe that Mom and Dad are going to try and show me that I would be better off not catching squirrels. Sounds like big time yummy treats coming! WOOF! Ray!
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You did find a way to work in a poop story! I bet Ray is so pleased with himself today. He must be strutting his stuff!
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Not so fast young lady… wait until Jan 16 Post!
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Woo hoo!
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Oohhh… Sammie will be so jealous! She’s always trying to catch the squirrels in our backyard.
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Oh dear! She has the genes already, so she just needs to focus on the job at hand. She’ll get one eventually. 🙂
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That’s what I’m afraid of… Haha!
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Hi Colin! Yes…that IS quite an achievement. And that must have been one bold (or brainless) squirrel to have let Ray approach him. Maybe it thought Ray wanted to cuddle with him…? He does seem kind of like a nice cuddly 75lb teddy bear from a distance… 😉
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Hi Phoebe. I suspect that squirrels are way down in the “smarts” comparison tables! Our squirrels always seem to wait until the last minute before leaping to the wood fence, or to a tree ….. but they only have to make one mistake!
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Hopefully Ray should be OK. Maggie rolled a squirrel (as she has done a pigeon and flipped a young rabbit) and got a nasty nip, but both lived to tell the tale. Hopefully any ‘smelly evidence’ will soon be obscured. Poor Ray.
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Poor Ray??? I think that he was very happy with his skirmish! He is too big to be particularly agile (especially when cornering at speed), so to catch one of those little guys is quite the achievement! 🙂
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I was thinking more of his bloody nose as at least Maggie’s just had a drip or two.
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Ah yes! I wish my nose bleeds stopped as fast as his! 🙂
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Sounds like Ray may have saved you from a squirrel attack 😉
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That was probably on his mind. His world must be very threatened, what with squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, racoons, skunks.. and we must not forget his main opponent for supremacy…. CATS!
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It seems he has a lot of responsibilities. My dogs do, too. Rodents in the yard cause a lot of stress.
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Hope Ray is a-okay — sounds like he was the victor, and I’m sure, as dogs go, he’s mighty proud of himself (and should be). 🙂 Wishing you all a great day! (Now that you’ve gotten all that clean up out of the way.)
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Hi Deb. With the exception of his “poop cycle” being totally out of routine, he seems fine. I have no doubt that he was very pleased with his performance (protecting his territory from those nut burying furry guys), but I really wish that he would learn to share his space!
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Ah, dogs! Charlie is just so certain that he owns the sidewalk in front of our house and barks and barks at anyone violating that line, 😉 We have squirrels in our neighborhood too, and when Chuck sees one — well, the chase is on! Give Ray a pat on the head and a treat and he’ll be extra proud of himself. 🙂
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