To know me you must love my dogs. If you are like me your dogs are like family. But unlike humans, dogs/pets can’t convey what’s wrong when they are sick or hurt. You just see it in their eyes that something is not right and you try to do a little bit of everything until you find the problem. When big things happen you don’t hesitate to go to the vet, but when you know its something small and don’t want a hefty vet bill in your future, then there are some fixits you can do from home.

For example, today me and the girls went for a nice walk (nice meaning freezing and windy) with nothing out of the ordinary happening. When I let them back in to the house I hung behind in the front hall to hang up my coat. When I then went in to the kitchen there was red all over the floor. Since one of the girls is a lab I just thought she got a hold of something red and squirted it everywhere, I was only half right. It turns out that on our walk the cement ground down her trimmed nails to the quick making her bleed every time she took a step. For amateurs you might try to wash it and bandage it. Fat chance that bandage will stay on her feet and not in her mouth. Smart dog owners have styptic powder to stop the bleeding but…I didn’t.

So here’s a handy dandy trick. Flour does the same job as styptic powder for small cuts. So I put about an inch of flour in a container and dunked her paw in it. The bleeding slowed and I dunked again. Voila…the bleeding stopped. And because she was licking up some spilled flour she didn’t even notice my highly technical procedure.

Another tip is hydrogen peroxide. When the pup has eaten something highly toxic…sayyyy a bar of Dove soap (which isn’t so pure when it comes to a dog’s digestive tract) and you want her to puke it up, feed her some hydrogen peroxide. Of course if you don’t know what she ate its always best to call your vet, but if you are missing a bar of soap or a whole chocolate cake you can help the pup feel better. For a small dog, administer about a cap full. For a larger dog, around 2 Tbs is the correct dose. It tastes icky so you may need a syringe to make a direct path to the throat and wait. It should take 5 minutes or less. If he/she still isn’t better after puking, ring the vet.

I wish I could take credit for these medical discoveries but alas the credit goes to my (aka my dogs’) vet who understands that even though when it comes to our pets our hearts are full, sometimes our wallets are not.