Chase's Shoes

My dog, Chase, is wearing "shoes" for the next three weeks, and this is what I think...

For those of you who do not know, Chase comes to work to see the residents every day. Yesterday, a group of residents, Chase, and I were out for walk and it happened to be quite hot and muggy. When we are out with the residents, Chase loves to show off how fast he can run by hanging back from the group, and then zooming around us when we least expect it. Apparently the tar of the driveway was too hot for his paws, and the pads on both of his front paws cracked. I was unaware of this until a couple of hours later when the receptionist pointed out that he had been laying in a corner licking his feet all afternoon. When I checked them out, I found that he had licked them so much that he had torn off the entire padding!

I needed to stop him from licking the wounds, so I borrowed some socks from our life-like Alzheimer's doll, Tommy. As it happens, Tommy wears a pair of red baby socks that are designed to look like little, red sneakers, and they happened to fit perfectly on Chase. Because he is the world's most perfect dog and does whatever I tell him, he kept them on for the rest of the day (and night). Unfortunately, when he moves too much, they start to slip off.

Chase took a sick day from work today to go to the doctor (with Daddy Kurtis), where he received a painful shot in the back, some ointment to be applied thrice daily, and orders to wear his awesome "shoes"for the next three weeks, around which time he should be mostly healed. The doctor also gave Chase some special tape to hold on his socks without pulling out his leg hairs.

You know what I think? My dog is awesome. His shoes match his collar, he does not try to take them off, and he kind of kicks ass.

This evening, Chase posed for a photo shoot to show off his snazzy new sneaks which he will sporting until July.

You go, dawg.

Ready to chill.

Ready to run.

Ready for his close-up.