Poor Sampson

Last night just felt different... probably because our dog stayed overnight at the Vet's office. He was too sedated to come home after a last minute surgery late yesterday afternoon. It all started Sunday night (Monday morning) around 12:00 midnight. Sampson kept shaking his head over and over... about every 20-30 seconds... almost like he had a flea on him... a flea that he just could not get rid of. It must have really started driving him crazy because he started huffing and puffing and breathing really heavy... running around the house shaking his head... that is when I decided the flea must be in his ear! Between the constant jingling of his collar and tags and Hubby's snoring, I had had enough at 1:30am. I had to get up at 4:30am for boot camp, so I sent Hubby to the guest room and shut the door (to keep from hearing the dog.. oh, and the snoring). I think Hubby finally wound up taking Sampson to the basement and putting external flea spray on him... Well, the next evening we got the flashlight and looked in Sampson's ears. There was quite a sizable thing in his right ear that we thought might be a tick! We had taken him to the country this past weekend and ticks are everywhere down there. So we took him outside along with tweezers, peroxide and cotton balls. Needless to say, when I finally got the tweezers around that monster, Sampson was not having any of it! So we took him to our Neighbor's house and all four of us got to checking his ears out... Mr. Neighbor thought both ears had issues so he retrieved some "ear cleaning solution" for dogs that they used to apply in their yellow lab's ears. Sampson went absolutely CRAZY when Mr. N squirted the solution in his left ear. I wish I had the video camera.... Sampson kept running across the porch and diving into the wood floor with his ear... he finally resorted to the grass in the front lawn. After about 20 or so minutes of crazy dog antics in the grass, he joined us up on the porch and we did not hear a peep from him the rest of the night! Of course, the next morning he was taken to the Vet's office. I got a phone call around lunch time from Sampson's doctor. He wanted permission to sedate him. He had to remove all kinds of dirt and rocks from his ears to get to the ruptured ear drum! They also wanted to remove the growth we thought was a tick. WOW. No wonder poor Sampson was acting so crazy. Hubby is picking him up this morning and hopefully getting a lesson on doggie ear cleaning. I am just waiting to see the bill.