Willie

Yesterday in the early evening we decided to take the dogs up to Bradley Lake with the kids and go for a nice walk. We did one lap around the lake and decided it was such a beautiful evening that we would take another lap. About three-quarters of the way through the second lap, Dallas said "what's on Willie?", after which I noticed a red spot near where his shoulder meets his neck (that's a tough call because they kind of run into each other, he has put on a few pounds now that he is getting into his senior years). We stopped and I looked at it closer and could not believe what I was looking at. Poor Willie had what appeared to be a big and deep cut. It looked like it was about an inch long and about as deep. Nobody knew how or when it happened. I took him to the vet first thing this morning. The vet looked at him and the expression on her face told me it was a pretty serious wound. She said she needed to keep him there and would get to it later in the morning. So I left Willie there and waited for a call. No call so I called over there around 2 and they said he was ready to pick up they were just getting him cleaned up. They put him under and cut the hair off in the area and stapled him up (9 staples). They also had to put a tube in behind the staples to catch the infected stuff to drain it out (it looks kind of like the one I had when I had my appendix out). Anyway, he is doing good but is rather lethargic and resting a lot right now. We have to take him back Friday morning to get the drain out and then again the next Friday after that to get the staples removed. Poor guy, who knows how long he had that before we noticed it. The vet said it was infected and had been there for at least a couple of days. He is a good dog.