I put a spell on you

In the brief minutes of calm between the arrival of the vet and the arrival of the first appointment, we generally make a cup of tea and chat (a good way for me to pump for information!) about various animal-related topics: the plummeting reputation of the RSPCA since the bunny-hugger coup in the early 80s; the problem of bovine TB and the soaring badger population; down to more personal anecdotes. The other day I during this lull I was telling the duty vet about Beattie’s lick granuloma and how difficult it is to get it to heal. It’ll be almost better and then she’ll have another go at it and we’re back to square one. As if she wasn’t bad enough, a couple of days ago I had to scold Piglet because he was licking it for her!

There’s no guaranteed ‘cure’ for these things other than prevention by various means while you try to discover the reason behind the licking. It’s usually for one of two reasons – physical discomfort (a cut, an itch, a thorn, arthritis etc) or mental upset, rather like a child thumb-sucking or nail-biting for security. With Beattie it started when my work routine changed, but I’m beginning to think she might be getting a touch of arthritis in the joints of her paws as well. Either way the result’s the same – the more they lick the sorer it becomes so they lick more to ease it. It ends up a bit like Lady Macbeth where however hard she scrubbed her hands with the wire brush she couldn’t get rid of the blood …

But I digress. The vet and I were talking about the possible prevention methods; bandaging (either the bandage gets chewed off or they start to lick somewhere else instead), a lampshade collar (distressing for many dogs, and as soon as you take it off they start again). The best thing is to keep an eye on them and distract them whenever they start. Then it was time for surgery. And it was very strange – no matter what the appointment was really for, whether for a booster injection, or stitches out, or a sore eye, four out of five of the owners mentioned that their dog had a place that they kept licking and making sore! I wonder what interesting topic we should talk about next to see if we suddenly have an influx of sufferers.