I now understand why they're called fur babies

My poor puppy.

Raven has a bad case of happy tail (an inappropriately named condition where dogs wag their tails so fiercely in excitement, hitting any and everything in their path, breaking the skin under the tail hair, leaving a trail of blood in their wake, and on the walls... doors... door frames... cabinets... clothes... bare legs that happen to be nearby... the list goes on), and it has led us here.

I had it loosely wrapped in a makeshift bandage for a couple weeks, hoping it would heal on its own, but this past Thursday I noticed the bandage was gone, and she was casually licking the wound. When I went to wrap it again, she flinched and pulled away. Since this was uncharacteristic of her, I made her lay down while I (gently) took a closer look. It was super red and swollen, so I took her to the vet the next day. As it turns out, it got infected somehow. Oh, and also? Her ear infection is back.

$300 later, we left the vet armed with a round of antibiotics, pain meds, an anti-inflammatory prescription, ear drops, and a brand, new e-collar (aka the cone of shame). It was a lot, but I had one important thing on my side: hope. We were finally getting over this hump, and I was on my way to not cleaning blood off my walls every single day.

Not quite.

I failed to mention Raven also has a nasty, little skin tag under her chin. It's a raised bump that looks like a tiny head of cauliflower, which, according to the vet, is completely harmless: we'll just keep an eye on it, but there's no need to mess with it right now. The thing is, that e-collar around her neck is plastic, and it sits right beneath her chin. Am I dropping enough foreshadowing hints here? Yesterday, she got a little bold and tried to escape the cone. Her attempt was a fail, but it did snag the skin tag, causing it to start bleeding, profusely. The crazy thing is, she hardly even noticed! She went on about her business, bleeding at the neck, ignoring our summons.

At this point, I've had to clean and disinfect this cone more times than I can count. It got to the point where we just duct taped paper towels to the inside to catch any future hiccups. Between the tail (which is healing quite slowly - the vet even threatened a partial amputation if it doesn't get better in a couple weeks), the ear infection, the skin tag, and the vomiting from the medicine (did I mention that? came home on my lunch hour to a nice surprise), I feel like I'm taking care of an actual person! It's like she's a child; I now understand why they're called fur babies.

Okay, rant over. I'm off to check on my patient.