Dinged Up

Pappy has found there is a price to be paid for being an adventure dog here in Maine. There have been a few mornings where he was looking a bit stiff after a strenuous day of dashing about. I have been keeping an eye on wear spots on his pads from scrambling around on the rocks, and one day he was limping a bit on his right foreleg. He's constantly got gunk in his fur, and recently I combed out a big clod of pine sap. Yesterday I put disinfectant on a sizable scrape over his eye from dashing face-first into the spruce thickets after his ball.

But there is an upside too. When I let him out this morning, he had the freedom to saunter down to the beach in the early morning haze to lick spilled butter from the rocks following last night's lobster party.