Clean socks

I think it was a sapling cut off an inch off the ground when Mom and Dad had the backyard landscaped that scraped the skin under my carpal paw. Don't get me wrong. I love the new back yard. The patio pavers soak in the sun's warmth and are fun to sleep on on a cool autumn day. The deck is off the ground high enough I can survey my entire territory, spotting bunnies  in the woods, turkeys daring to perch on the fence or those sneaky squirrels leaping from pine to pine.

My blood doesn't clot well so I tend to bleed and the smell made me want to lick. Mom says, "Don't lick." But I can't leave a wound alone.

I licked every time Mom wasn't looking.

Boy, that was a mistake. She knew I licked because the little scrape bled and the blood dropped on the floor, on the carpet and on my bed. Mom took a clean sock and wrapped it around my leg for a bandage, then wrapped the sock in duck tape. I knew I could get that sock off. All I had to do was wait until Mom was out of the room. 

Mom isn't the alpha for nothing. She had a second sock. She pulled a second sock over my foot and up my leg and wrapped another length of duck tape around my leg. She pulled the top of the sock down over top of the duck tape and put on a third round of duck tape. Even I couldn't chew through all that.

The bandage worked. My carpal paw healed. Of course, as soon as Mom decided I didn't need the bandage anymore and took off the socks I started licking and reopened the wound. That got me a new bandage.

Mom checked with the vet. If your alpha wants to protect a wound on your paw with socks the important thing is to make sure the wound doesn't get wet and the duck tape shouldn't be too tight. If your foot gets cool, then the duck tape is too tight. The duck tape doesn't have to be very tight though with three rounds of duck tape.

Socks can prevent licking for those times you just can't resist the urge.