Cooper has problems

Our dog Cooper has had the most random injuries. Our vet probably thinks that we don't take very good care of him. We do, but he just seems to get into trouble more often than not. For example:

Number one problem is his nose. About 2 or 3 years ago, we noticed that Cooper’s nose sounded like he was a little congested or stuffy. No big deal, we thought it would go away, but it didn’t. Took him to the vet, tried a number of different antibiotics, anti-histamines, various anti-inflammatories, etc, and nothing worked. In the meantime, his nose was getting worse and worse. Each time that he exhaled, along with the air would come out a bunch of bubbles. Not mucous-gross-snotty-nose bubbles, just like water bubbles. Weird, I know. Basically, his nasal passages were so swollen and inflamed that he was having a hard time breathing through his nose, and there was a lot of condensation built up inside that would come out when he exhaled. The veterinarian actually performed surgery, twice, to cut out some of the inflamed nasal tissue in hopes that it would widen the passages enough for him to breathe better. It didn’t work. Perhaps the weirdest part about this nose problem is that it kinda comes and goes. It’ll be tolerable and not very noticeable for several months, and then all of a sudden, Cooper will be snoring at night and it’ll sounds like there’s a bear in the house. He saws some serious logs with his snoring, to the point where we moved his dog bed out of our bedroom and down the hall so that we could get some sleep at night. If it does get really bad, then we can give him a Prednisone pill (anti-inflammatory steroid) and that will help clear it up back to tolerable. However, there was the “Christmas miracle” where during one Christmas holiday, his nose was 100 percent completely cleared up with no breathing problems whatsoever. We thought it was healed forever and always, but it only lasted for about two weeks and then went back to normal (tolerable). So strange. Anyway, the vet has no idea what is causing it and to this day, he still is snuffly and sniffly.

Number two problem probably comes by virtue of Cooper’s part-time occupation as a cowdog. Being a cowdog is not for the faint of heart, and for a 50-pound dog to go after a 900-pound angry mama cow, it takes a lot of guts (I was going to say that it takes a lot of balls, but Cooper’s neutered, so I figured that wasn’t a fair expression to use). And sometimes your cowdog gets hurt. Cooper has been kicked by cows COUNTLESS times. I hate it, it makes me cringe and my heart breaks a little bit each time it happens. As a result of being kicked, Cooper has had two front teeth knocked out. One of the teeth we never even noticed; it was just gone one day when I randomly looked at his teeth. The other tooth was broken and we had to have the rest of it removed. Other cow-related injuries mostly have to do with barbed wire, or so we think. Cooper will be off chasing cows, or we’ll be wandering through the canyon checking on cows, and he’ll come back with some gaping wound that we usually just attribute to getting caught in barbed wire, because we have no idea what else would have caused his wounds. So far he’s had stitches in his back leg-thigh area, his chest-belly area, and his front leg. Oh, and one of his toenails on his back foot was randomly missing one day. Like the entire toenail was completely gone. It eventually grew back, but it’s all misshapen and weird looking.

One time I was out with Cooper and Baxter checking on the cows, and Cooper got kicked, and I thought he was going to die. He came over to me after the cow kicked him right in the kisser, and he had a mouth full of blood, which was nothing new. I checked to make sure that all of his teeth were intact, which they were. Then his legs started shaking. He wobbled a few steps away and vomited up blood. Now he was shaking to the point where he couldn’t stand up. I sat down on the ground and held him, sure that he was on his deathbed or having a seizure or something horrible. I didn’t know what to do, being out in the middle of nowhere and a good half-mile or so away from the truck. So I just sat and held him and tried to comfort him. In the meantime, the cows are starting to get curious as to what we are doing sitting in the middle of the field and start wandering over towards us. Baxter, for once in his life, does not chase the cows and get them more riled up. Instead, while I’m holding Cooper on the ground, Bax crouches down in front of us and gives the cows the evil eye, daring them to come closer. They don’t. I find it so touching that Baxter instinctively knows that right now, I need him to keep the cows away, and he does it effectively. After several agonizing minutes, Cooper’s shaking stops. I wish that I was strong enough to carry him all the way back to the truck, but I’m not, so we take it slow and he wobbles his way back. If I wasn’t so worried about him having brain damage, I would have found it so funny to watch him stumbling around like a drunken sailor. We made it to the water trough, and Cooper took a long, revitalizing drink, and then was well enough to hop into the cab of the truck. We made it home and by the next morning, Cooper was fine. No signs of permanent brain damage that I know of. Thank goodness.