Poor Puppy

About two weeks ago, my mom noticed a sore on Cosmos's paw. We think it came from possibly a piece of bark or a rock from our backyard. We casually monitored him so that he would not make it worse by licking the wound and took him to his new vet two days later. They shaved around the sore, took care of the infection, groomed his paws, gave us medication for him to take, and he returned home just fine. Although it was just a minor problem for him, it made me upset to think he was in the slightest amount of pain. Here is a veterinarian who's blog posts were almost . . . upsetting to read.

This had me thinking about the time he got a tumor near his eye. About five or six year ago, we noticed that on the outside corner of his left eye, there was a small bump on his skin. We didn't think much of it until it just kept getting bigger and bigger and ended up taking him to the vet's. I was over at the neighbor's house having a playdate when I came home to a poor puppy who had been cone-shammed. Now he has a gnarly stitch line giving him the appearance that he's rocking a cat-eye look.

When I first saw Cosmo after he had the tumor removed and was all stitched up, my eyes started watering. Part of it was that I was about eight or nine at the time and didn't really understand how minor the tumor was. But I think the main reason was because I didn't want to see such a happy dog with sad puppy eyes. Up until that point, I hadn't really seen Cosmo as anything but pure bliss. But the reality that he could, in fact, get sick or injured ruined the innocence of him for me. Literally two minutes ago as I was typing, my new house just made a odd noise in the quiet of the night, and Cosmo was very startled after being dead asleep. Catching him on senior moments like this make me realize that he is old and fragile now. I wish he could be that energetic puppy he once was when I was about the same height as him.

A happy Cosmo and me in 2009 hiking!

Well, Cosmo's telling me it's bedtime. Sweet dreams.

A sleepy Cosmo ready for bed.