And Herschel said he was just minding his own business

 Thumbs are very useful.  Injured thumbs are reminders to those that are injured of the benefits of opposable thumbs.  I injured my thumb yesterday breaking up a dogfight. A large Mastiff mistook my thumb for Herschel.  Herschel will be fine soon enough and no matter what you read in the tabloids, he did not start the fight and he barely fought back, which is probably why he did not get injured. Well compared to what could have happened he didn't get injured much.

But before going on to the important Herschel part of the story let me remind the reader of how difficult it is to open medicine containers without using your thumb. Try opening jar lids. Try zipping and snapping tight pants. I would speak to appropriately fitting pants but I don’t seem to have any of those in my closet at this time so I can only report injured thumb effects on tight dockers.

Now on to the important Herschel details.

My nephew, Josh, has been foster a 5 year old Mastiff for a friend. My nephew is a very nice, kind, young man. The Mastiff is a very large, big, untrained dog. When Josh has both his nine month untrained boxer/lab mix and the Mastiff on leashes the two of them out weigh him.

I had been out and met the dog on several occasions. The dog has always seemed well mannered enough but big and strong and my nephew is not all that large.  Well, Herschel and I had taken off into the woods to check out the winter “wind falls” and damage to what trails are left back in the woods.  Here came Josh with the dogs. The Mastiff pulled the nephew directly towards Herschel who was walking calmly towards them ready to say, “Hi.” Next thing Herschel knew he was on the ground on the bottom with a very large dog on top of him.

I have always read that the dangerous dogs are the ones that don’t give any warnings. Half way through the dog struggle I realized that my nephew had only put a loose soft collar on the Mastiff which came off the first time he tried to use the leash to pull the dog off Herschel. A few dogs bites later that seemed like hours but of course were only moments the dogs were separated and I got Herschel away so that Josh could get the Mastiff under control.

Josh was on his phone calling his friend letting them know that they needed to pick up the dog before the end of the day.  Josh realized immediately that he did not have the training, time or money necessary to deal with this particular dog.  I reminded him the good news part was that the Mastiff had the melt down with the two of us and not someone one else (or one of his young nieces round) and with a fairly non-aggressive dog. Had Herschel tried to fight back I am sure he would have had much more than an ear puncture.  

Herschel was already on antibiotic so he didn’t have to go see his Dr. Daphne.  I did shave his ear down so that the puncture wound could get some healing air and topical sprays. Then I suggested we trim his neck so that the air can circulate and finally trimmed some of the hair of his right ear so they wouldn’t look too mix matched.  

She said they looked just fine. So explain the covered mirrors again.

Remi made some crack about buying Herschel an earring so that Herschel could develop his pirate side but I reminded him of the danger of the snagging bushes and low tree limbs. Either way we all agreed that maybe we should cover the mirrors for a few days until the hair grows out a little.

Remi thinks a pirate hoop would give certain style statement.

An interesting find yesterday. I read an article while sitting in Urgent Care waiting for my thumb to be looked at. A woman wrote an article about the journal she wrote consisting of writing one sentence a day. She started her Journaling when her children were young and wrote how wonderful it was to capture in just one sentence the flavor of childhood days and memories.  She also wrote how much more doable it was to write one sentence that it was to blog whole essays. It was a habit that she was able to develop and support.

I think I sort of like the idea of that. There is at least one brief thought that makes a smile dance across my mind or one moment of irony that is worth capturing in a journal. Should we take bets whether I can remember one mundane thing a day to write down?

Back to earlier topics of publishing and self-publishing, the women writing the article now has available in an e-book format the first, I can’t remember how many, years of her children’s lives, one sentence a day. The examples she shared did sound precious. But my children are now both thirty and above so my chance to create a credible revenue stream off a memoir of their childhood delights has sailed.