The Christmas '09 Bite

Clarkson had stopped sneezing and all was well in the Jiggins' house as we geared up for the holidays. My brother Kevin was hosting my entire family at his home in Naperville for Christmas and he gave us the go-ahead to bring the muppet baby. Boy did we not know what we were getting into that day...

Clarkson immediately peed in Kevin's house as soon as we walked in the door. Awesome. The dog hasn't had an accident in our house in over a month and this is what happens within minutes of our arrival. I think that he was excited to meet Kevin's 110 lbs. golden retriever, Domer.

Domer is an awesome dog who has a penchant for eating napkins but other than that he's completely harmless. Here is a video of Clarkson and Domer at play (if you can't tell, Caitlin thought this was funny):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5m3ujZjVg

As you can see, the dogs were getting along great! I would say that this playing went on for nearly an hour or so until it happened: the Christmas '09 Bite.

There was a bit of a size advantage for Domer so in order for Clarkson to get in his licks, he was forced to jump up to Domer's mouth. Apparently at one point, he jumped straight into Domer's mouth as Domer was nipping back, and well, Domer connected. All of the sudden Clarkson let out a crazy, bloodcurdling series of screams that literally sounded like an alarm. An alarm with no snooze. An alarm which would NOT shut off. I have never in my life heard a dog scream like that. I don't think anyone in the room had heard anything like it either because everyone kind of stood there, downright confused from the screams. Everyone except my dad...

My dad came CHARGING into the kitchen (where the bite happened) with the grace of a herd of elephants. "ALL RIGHT....CALM DOWN....EVERYONE CALM DOWN....ALL RIGHT." My dad, bless him, does not have a soothing voice. All the while, Clarkson's alarm screams are getting progressively louder and faster. Imagine a tornado siren interspersed with the screams of "ALL RIGHT....ALL RIGHT...CALM DOWN!" This was Christmas 2009.

Unsurprisingly, the rival screams of my dad did not calm the dog down. Once he was able to pass the dog over to me, Clarkson eventually stopped screaming and I rushed him out of the room to the (white-carpeted) dining room. It was there where we found out that the muppet baby was bleeding! Up until I saw the actual blood, I was convinced that Clarkson was in fact a stuffed animal. A little teddy bear stuffed with rainbows and sunshine.

Nope. He's a real dog and he had real pain and I almost collapsed. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes, but Clarkson was definitely spooked. So was Domer! One minute they were playing and the next he was dealing with absolute Chaos! We made sure that Clarkson was ok and gave him lots of treats and attention for the remainder of the night.

So at this point Clarkson has peed and bled on the carpet. Super awesome. Anyway, by the time we left, Clarkson was running around again, acting totally normal. Clarkson and Domer were even playing again, which was such a relief. Just before we were about to leave, Clarkson started running frantically around the couch letting out a stream of urine in his wake. No squatting. No raising of the leg. Just running and peeing. Are you kidding me? It was time to go.

It just so happened that we had a vet appointment the next day for the last of his immunizations so they were able to take a look at the wounds. They shaved off a little piece of his hair to take a closer look and everything checked out ok. Now he just looks like a badass. A badass who lost his two front baby teeth (simply because they fell out, nothing to do with the bite). Hilarious!!

Tonight we are taking the toothless and scarred muppet baby to his first puppy training class.

It's the first day of school! I must sign off now as I have to pack his lunch and take his picture on the stairwell after we measure him and mark off how tall he has gotten in the garage.

Kidding.

Kind of.