Sammy has had a tough couple of days. The other day he ran outside to chase some deer away from our backyard fence, and when he came back in he was limping. I checked his feet and found that he had torn one of his toenails and the torn part was sticking out at a 90-degree angle. Ouch! That hurts no matter who you are.

Sammy has spent the last few nights being very restless, coming over to wake me up and not wanting to lay down on his bed and go to sleep. I thought maybe he had to go outside, so I tried to get him to go downstairs so I could let him out. Normally, he’d let himself out through the dog door, but we’ve blocked it off the past few days since the weather has been really cold and the “Extreme Weather” dog door doesn’t deal well with extreme weather, unless you’re just talking about rain.

Turns out Sammy just wanted me to wake up and cuddle him and pet him, and generally sympathize with his plight. [What a wimp! You won’t catch me whining like that. ~ Boots] In any case, today I used a zapper to help reduce the pain, then I took advantage of his natural restlessness and took him outside to run around. I didn’t have the stomach to rip or cut the hanging nail piece off, but I thought if he got excited and ran around it might come off by itself. Sure enough, we got back in the house and the split nail was gone, and all that was left was a rather bloody mess.

Sammy seems a lot happier, though, since the hanging nail piece isn’t stabbing his foot with pain every time he moves. Is it just me or are you terrified of trimming your dogs nails? I always figure I’m gonna do it wrong and he’ll bleed to death. There’s nothing worse than hearing your pet scream in pain…

Sammy’s pretty funny as he tends to be a drama queen (king?). Molly pretty much endures any injuries stoically. Our vet friend said most Labs are like that and they won’t let you know they’re in pain until it’s really severe. A dog mommy must be observant!