So there I was freaking out about the stain on the steps when I heard "Mom, there's blood!" followed by a sneeze. I rushed to the living room and there on the floor was a huge amount of blood, but the victim wasn't one of the kids, it was our geriatric dog (she's around 18 years old or so.) When I got there, she had moved about six feet away, to the nice new living room rug. Yeah, can you see where this is going?
I grabbed some paper towels and was cleaning up the first mess when I hear another sneeze, followed promptly by two more sneezes. This dog had the Mother of All nosebleeds. Before we could corral her, she had left two more sneezy, bloody messes in two more rooms (including on the dining room carpet.) Yuck.
We (the kids and I) hit the mass panic button and finally got her hemmed up in the kitchen where at least the floor would be easy to clean. While this was going on, I rushed to call my Sis-In-Law who worked at a vet's office for years and is our repository for all animal knowledge in the family. Then we got to work cleaning up all the mess.
The poor dog's nose was gushing blood and was really gross, poor thing. We laid down moving blankets, made her comfortable and made sure she wasn't going to die on us over night and went to bed. First the steps disaster and now the dog one. I was completely stressed out by this point.
The good news is, she's fine. The vet kept her all day under observation, gave her antibiotics and there's been no more nosebleeds. The bad news is that not one person knows what caused it and it could happen again at anytime. Yep, two hundred odd dollars later and the vet is clueless.
Being a pet owner is so much fun.
