dont panic!

Whenever I have been in a situation where someone has gotten hurt or ill I am usually okay and deal with it well. Whenever one of my animals has gotten ill or hurt it is a different story!

Today I attempted for the first time to trim one of Darkley’s claws. I have seen it done before, been shown how to do it and read up on it over and over. Yet I still managed to make it all go horribly wrong! Darkley has mixture of black and white claws, so I just attempted a couple of the white ones for now. Try to ease myself in to doing it! Darkley sat and let me do the first one with no problems. He wasn’t bothered at all by what I was doing, such a good boy. So I go on to do the second one and all of a sudden Holly comes bounding in to the living room at a million miles per hour, making Darkley turn as I go to cut. Oh.dear.dog! Here came the blood, all over me, the sofa and Darkley. I shouted to my mum the most bizarre thing I have ever think I have said to her, “Mum can you get me a bowl of flour quick!” I was in full panic mode!  I finally managed to use the flour to stop the blood and I clean everything up. (Darkley had gotten bored and fallen asleep!) So then I put him in the kitchen with a tasty bone so he wouldn’t bash his claw on anything and make it bleed again (and partly because I felt SO guilty, so I found him the biggest bone in the freezer!)

Everything was fine for a while till he decided to leap on to holly and chase her across the living room… yup blood everywhere again. The main issue I have with stopping it is that Darkley has no idea why I keep wrapping a tissue around his paw or telling him to sit still. He really was confused about it all and didn’t seem to realise he was bleeding at all! Plus he is a hyper ball of energy and getting him to rest his paw is a mission. So I put a pathetic little bandage around his paw so there is some padding around the nail for a while. It has also made him sulk so he is sprawled across the floor snoozing as I type this. It’s the only way I can get him to rest it!

While this is going on Holly is running about concerned. She smelt the blood on his paw and paced back and forth. She keeps going up to Darkley and giving him little licks. They are so sweet to watch together!

Many of my animals have medical issues, all of which I panic about and I am constantly thinking about. Darkley has diet problems, Holly has bladder issues, Casper the canary has cysts, Mojo the dragon is part blind and Louie has arthritis... that is just the main issues! It makes me super over protective of them all BUT it has also made me closer to them all. I spend extra time with all of them because of the issues and I have to keep that extra close eye on them too. I wouldn’t change them for the world though all of the issues are through breeding, genetics or age related. Can’t stop the issues being there but I can make them less of an issue. Darkley is finally on the right mixture of food that he is happy with, Holly is still on medication which is working so far, Casper has regular baths and can fly again, Mojo is hand fed and her vivarium is easy for her to run about in and Louie’s cage has been made arthritis and elderly bird friendly.  I will cover all of these in more detail at some point but each has caused me sleepless nights and lots of headaches.  Do I panic too easily? Yes probably. Why do I panic? Because they are my family!

being blind doesn't stop mojo being cheeky!