Winston walks his socks off

Today the vet tech Jose suggested that I could protect Winston’s feet on walks by putting my socks on his feet and then TAPING them to his fur so they wouldn’t fall off. I slipped one sock over his worst foot (left hind foot) for a trial run. The first time I tried it, the sock fell off before we even got out the door. I tried it again with more masking tape, and we were off! We had gone past a few houses when I realized that I had taped it onto the wrong foot the second time! Fortunately I had brought along a band-aid for emergencies.

But dragging that sock along was hard for my poor old Winston in his weakened condition. He quickly wore a hole in it. The sock stayed on, but seemed to weigh on his foot. He started to poop and then collapsed in the street with a shocked, ashamed, horrified look in his eyes. The sock seemed to prevent him from rising again.

I petted him til we were both calmer, then managed to get the sock off and the poop into a bag. Winston got back on his feet and made it home, but was literally dragging his butt on the sidewalk for the last few steps leading to our gate. I’m not going to try to walk him that far alone again. (And it wasn’t far… maybe 5 minutes at a normal pace.)

Last night I had a Winston nightmare that was bloodless but sad. I cut off Winston’s two hind feet, and then Audrey cut off his two front feet. In the nightmare, Winston was calm and his feet detached easily without blood.

I got a new camera so I can take some good photos of Winston at this point in his life. He’s still beautiful, especially his face. He has a new look on his face lately. Both Dillon and I have notice it. He often looks like he’s really THINKING about something, with a kind of noble expression.