Our adventure, yesterday, centered around the question: Is Veggie Dog extremely lucky or is she really unlucky (and "lucky" is merely a euphemism for not getting her whole eye poked out and going blind)? Probably, option number two.

After our morning hike, Vdog was snooping around in the yard, while I chatted on the phone in the hammock chair. Then an elongated, piercing dog-scream and a left beagle eye full of blood. Apparently, Vdog gouged herself in the eye with a stick. Or something like that. I only heard it happen and saw her running away from the crime scene onto the porch. Poor, poor puppy.

Snark patted the blood out with a paper towel and some water, called the vet, and we took her in. The eye started bleeding again when we got to the vet; Vdog was shaking like Scoob and Shaggy after seeing a ghost. I was happy that the vet we saw this time was really nice and attentive. She gave Vdog some anesthesia and put liquid nitrate onto the laceration above and below the tear duct. (They didn't stitch it because it was too close to the tear duct.) LUCKILY (if we can really use that word), no lacerations on the eyeball.

We were sent home with a drugged dog in a new, shorter neck-cone to protect her from trying to rub her swollen, milky eye, some eye ointment to rub in three times a day for 7-10 days (I leave that task to Snark; it seems impossible, and last night the eye bled again when he did it, which pushed me closer to hysterical worry!), and an almost $200 vet bill. Oh joy! Actually, I don't care so much as long as Vdog starts to feel better and get better soon. (She has some cats in San Diego to meet next weekend and what misery it would be to have to visit them with a neck-cone surrounding her head!)

Her eye looks LOVELY here compared to when it fills up with blood

(another one of those lucky/unlucky word paradoxes)