In my never-ending quest to shave a few dollars off the monthly outlay for items that are clearly extravagant (those purple Crocs I bought were a requirement for my poor tired feet and in no way could be categorized as unnecessary spending), I decided to invest in a nail clipper and trim the dogs’ nails myself. How hard could it be?

There was probably a little voice in my head that was saying “any activity that generates that question should automatically be avoided,” but it got lost amid the Satanic streaming audio channel that is beamed directly into the XM receiver that is my brain. That one pretty much goes like this: “There’s no such thing as too much chocolate. The gym will not fall down if you don’t go today. Hitting the snooze alarm *just one more time* will make you feel so much more rested. Chocolate ice cream! The crust on those dishes won’t be any worse tomorrow than it is right now. More wine for everyone. HOT FUDGE SUNDAE WITH CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM.” And so on.

Anyway, there was no guardian angel around to save Buster a few days ago when Caitlin innocently suggested that his toe nails would soon be curling into spirals and that was most likely not healthy for him. She offered to hold him while I clipped which seemed at the time to be a good deal for me. (A fact that will soon become important is that this occurred when I was about 15 pages from finishing a book that I had been struggling to get through and all I really wanted to do was finish the damn thing.)

We wrestled Buster to the ground – he’s a svelte 48 pounds, but is amazingly strong for his size – and I aimed the clippers at one of his back feet. His eyes showed a lot of white around the edges, which creeps me out, and that may have distracted me, but I swear that on that first nail I clipped only about 1/32 of an inch off. Which created a stream of dog-blood unlike anything I have ever seen before. I wiped it with a tissue, assuming that it would clot and stop in a few seconds, and went on to clip the rest of his nails with no other mishaps.

After he shook off the shackles of Caitlin he bounded across the room and we noticed some bloodstains trailing him. “Put him outside,” I instructed somewhat tersely, thinking to myself “15 more pages and I’ll deal with it then…”

(“It” now being blood spots on the blue carpet, the off-white carpet, the hardwood and out onto the deck. But I didn’t know that then. I was rather focused on finding out whether the book had been worth the time I had invested in it so far.)

Nor did I realize that Caitlin – who is a dedicated vegan – would become semi-hysterical at the sight of all that blood and let the beast back into the house while he was still leaking red fluid faster than Enron did on their worst day. The final tally:
1. A call to the emergency vet which resulted in the “nurse” claiming she didn’t know what to suggest
2. Countless bloodstains requiring back-breaking application of some carpet cleaner that did nothing but smear the red around and grind it more deeply into the pile
3. Additional profanity and other sharp words from me directed at Caitlin, the dog, the manufacturer of the clippers and Rick Santorum (that last one was on general principles that I haven’t ranted about any Republicans in a while)
4. Yards of gauze and miles of tape to contain the flood
5. A dog with a ham-sized wad affixed to his leg for about 24 hours during which all the other dogs called him names

The good news – Buster had suffered no real damage when the bandage came off the next day. And that limp should only take a few more days to go away. Right?

P.S. In case PETA wants to get all up in my face about this - no dogs, humans or teenagers were harmed in the production of this episode.