Mysterious Blood On Bed

I’m used to Brenda’s skin bleeding. She has pustulating sores on the underside of her chin that swell up, pop and ooze reddish goop. Her front left paw is swollen, tender, and filled with fluid. She has a few scrapes and scratches elsewhere. The muzzle doesn’t help. It irritates her. Without it she’d be too dangerous so we’ve all learned to live with the gruesome reality of her heath—she’s just not well. And after three visits to the vet, three skin scrapings that turned up negative and multiple rounds of antibiotics, I’m taking her to a new vet outside of Manhattan. Tonight, actually. I’m hopeful this doctor will have more empathy and compassion that my cynical mind doubts vets are capable of possessing. We’ll see.

Since Brenda is prone to bleeding often, I’m not squeamish (those who know me, are disgusted by the fact that I actually enjoy popping the pustules). But I like to know where the blood is coming from.

The other night, after picking up Porter and Sadie from daycare, I left them to play in the living room while I went to finish up some work in my office. Brenda followed me into the office in order to gaze up at me fondly. Note: even after a full day of playing with other dogs, Porter and Sadie are wild for a good half hour after I pick them up. It’s like they’re wind up dolls coming to the end of the line. When that happens they fall into a deep sleep that lasts for the rest of the night.

The door to my office opens into the end of a hall, which opens into the living room. The living room and the office share a wall. Hanging on the wall opposite the office door is a mirror in which, sitting at my desk, I can see my bed (which, remember, is in my living room). This mirror was not strategically hung, but it has come in handy when I want to spy on my playing puppies.

I hardly needed the mirror this night to know what they were up to. I could hear them. Jumping from the bed to the couch to the floor. Grumbling and guffawing and pawing and clawing. Rustle, rustle, pounce, skid. It was normal play. Then it turned to snarling and they started banging into the furniture instead of jumping on top of it. I came running in to put an end to the mayhem. I just didn’t want to listen to it anymore.

They stopped immediately and huffed into two small heaps away from each other. Rest was coming upon them, finally. I went to each separately to pat them on the head. When I approached Porter, who was laying on the bed, I noticed two medium-sized pools of blood on my light-colored sheets. It wasn’t there before I picked them up from daycare so I knew it wasn’t from Brenda this time. I instantly searched Porter from head to toe looking for an injury. Nothing. Did the same with Sadie. Nothing. Ran to Brenda, maybe it was her and I didn’t notice a gaping wound sooner. Nothing.

I now have to live with the fact that my bed has apparently caught whatever Brenda has on her chin. Maybe the vet today can give me a prescription for both!