A few nights go, I was stroking Cody's ears and felt a lump. I thought it was a growth, but closer inspection revealed a clot of dried blood. With Allan's help, I cleaned it out with hydrogen peroxide and found a large tear in the bottom part of the ear. I put some anti-bacterial ointment on it, but I had a feeling it was too large to heal on its own. Every time I checked on it, there was another thick clot of dried blood, and I knew it needed a few stitches.
Yesterday while I was at work (my last day at Dissolving Firm) Allan took Cody to the vet, and left there for the minor surgery. It was a pretty nasty tear, cut in three different ways. Now poor Cody has a cone on her head and is perfectly miserable. More on that later.
How did this happen? We don't know.
The dogs recently had a little tussle outside - teeth barred, lots of snarling, it went on long enough that Allan had to break it up. (I only saw part of it from an upstairs window.) It was the kind of argument that frightens inexperienced dog people, but didn't seem all that serious to us.
Did it happen then? Allan didn't hear Cody yelp in pain, which she certainly would have done if Tala had bitten her ear. The pain yelp is a very distinct sound, and we would have recognized it. Allan didn't have to drag Tala off Cody's ear, and he certainly didn't see any blood or other evidence of a more serious fight. This is all evidence against that fight being the cause of Cody's wound.
After the fight, Cody wanted nothing to do with Tala for several days. In fact, she was still acting like that when I found the wound. That's evidence in favour of the backyard fight theory.
Could Tala have bitten Cody's ear when we weren't around? It couldn't have happened when we weren't home, because Tala is crated when we're out. Could she have done it when they were playing in the backyard, while we were both busy with other things inside?
It seems unlikely, because we've never observed them fighting. Lately, Cody's been lying down, just hanging out on the lawn, while Tala amuses herself keeping her territory free of birds and squirrels. We don't watch them every moment, so it's theoretically possible that they got in a fight that we didn't see. But it's hard to imagine, as - except for this one fight that Allan observed - they always get along outside. Before Cody even accepted Tala in the home, they were playing happily in the backyard.
Could the wound have been caused by something else? Could Cody have stuck her head somewhere and gotten caught, and ripped her ear trying to free herself? She's such a timid dog - so not an explorer - that it's hard to imagine. But again, it's theoretically possible. We're going to examine the fence today to see if we can find a ragged edge or hole.
I find this very perplexing. Tala shows no signs of aggressiveness. She lived with a huge number of dogs at her foster home, and was never aggressive there. She's an assertive dog, for sure. At the dog park, when we're giving her treats for coming when called, she'll check back another dog who's trying to get in on her treats - but that's as far as it goes. She's not the Bottom Dog like Cody, but she's happy and well behaved around other dogs.
If Tala bit Cody's ear, that's something I need to know. But did she? And if she didn't, what happened?
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