Bo-Bo Knows Road Rash

Not that any one's keeping score, but my care of Bo-Bo has resulted in his spilled blood on three separate occasions.

1) I slammed his freakishly long monkey tail in the door on his second day in the Elcik & Kelly household.

2) Instead of letting him find his own way up and over the craggy jetties on Winthrop Beach (as he had been doing successfully until this point), I pulled him along a path that was good for me. Bo pinballed through a particularly jagged crevice and our walk ended in the doggy ER with a vet stitching his leg back together again.

3)Yesterday, Bo-Bo went for a face plant on pavement and came away with a chin full of road rash.

Yep. Five minutes from the end of our treacherous, arctic morning walk, I let my mind wander from the task at hand: helping my stilt-for-legs dog navigate sidewalks so icy I'm pretty sure my neighbors are hosing them down. So there's me in la-la land when, bam! A colossal crack of the decidedly sickening variety, and Bo's standing with his his front legs set in an unusually wide stance, and he's staring down at the ground, licking, licking, licking. I'm thinking sprained legs, pulled ligaments, broken legs, broken teeth, broken jaw, or concussion. Blood poored on his pretty, little chin. It looked the way rabies might if the foam was red.

At home, I put Bo through the paces. A lesser dog might have snapped at me for putting my hand anywhere near his hurty bits, but Bo looked up at me with his why-oh-why eyes. He didn't so much as whimper while I cleaned his wounds. And though the tape recorder in my mind had the sound of the thwack, thwack, thwack on endless repeat, it was clear road rash was the extent of Bo's injuries. His teeth were neither broken nor missing, and the crinkle of his sack-o-treats still inspired him to race down the hall with his reallyreallyreally grin at the ready.

This morning, Bo went into his morning winky-licking routine only to recoil with a yelp and a reprisal of his why-oh-why eyes. I dug out the medicine they gave him the last time he had an open wound, put the slightest little bit on a cotton ball, then dabbed it on. He jumped when I touched his pizza patch and his eyes went deep into their why-oh-well well, but still he followed me into the next room and curled up at my feet.

If causing doggy bloodshed--not once, not twice, but three times--is cause to question devotion, someone ought to let Bo know. In the meantime, take it from me--trust in the face of every contraindication is one of the little miracles of life.