Poor Dexter

Never a dull moment. Leo recovered from his leg injury, more or less, and now it's Dexter's turn to be injured. 

Poor Dexter had a lot of bad press around here. Dexter is rowdy, energetic and wild. It seems that he doesn't know that he's a Great Dane and thinks he might be a Husky or a Weimaraner. He's very quick to "lose it" and be completely out of control, resulting in dragging me down the street and getting into dog fights, including with his brother Leo. With that said, growing up a bit and losing his nuts has helped curb that madness a little bit.

Yet, if you take a step back and look at Dexter now you'll see he's just a miserable victim surrounded by bullies. First his fathers, the people he trusts most in the world, have decided to remove his balls. Chop chop. Then his brother Leo started a few fights with him to show him who's boss and bit him more than once, turning Dexter's head into a colander. And now, not wishing to be left out of the fun, Blake has joined the lynch mob.

For a while Blake enjoyed poking me in the eyes, but he quickly found out that I strongly disapprove of attempts to deflate my eyeballs. So the other day we went out and left Blake and the dogs with the babysitter/housekeeper (I can count on two hands the times we went out without him since he was born). When we came back she told us how Blake kept poking Dexter in the eye and Dexter was just taking it. Sweet, huh?

A few days later Dexter started squinting and rubbing his eye a lot against anything he could: his paw, the sofa, the nearest person. A visit to the vet confirmed what I guessed: Blake scratched the inside of Dexter's eyelid. 

Remember the scene in Interview with the Vampire where Kirsten Dunst's hair grows back immediately after she cuts it? Blake's fingernails are like that. You cut them and the next day they are once again sharp enough to cut through steel.

So Dexter is walking around with a lamp shade on his head and I have to put special eye drops in his eyes several times a day, antibiotics and artificial tears. Lots of bumping and scraping around, as if Great Danes aren't clumsy enough without additional help.

My mother was quite impressed when we told her about the whole thing. The fact that Dexter didn't bite or growl by reflex when the inside of his eyelids were being carved show just how dedicated he is to Blake. He didn't even get up and walk away. Bless his soul. 

We were always worried the dogs might hurt Blake, especially when he was younger. Leo once stepped on Blake's hand when he was still crawling and another time nearly sat on his head. Dexter bumped into Blake a couple of times in the garden, but it wasn't his fault: Blake ran towards him when he jumped backwards while playing with Leo. All in all, the dogs are very careful around Blake. So good that they would let him do anything he wants to them.

We got it all wrong. It's the dogs we need to protect! Poor puppies.

--Mickey