New step to add in the procedure for opening the garage door now

Isaac was a Mancoon. He just showed up one day. Couldn't get rid of him, so he stayed. He would bring home what we called "squirrel sandwiches." They were the back half of a squirrel that he would carry around like a sandwich, and don't even try to take it away from him.

One day, a coon must have got him and tore his neck open, about 3" long and down to the muscle. It was open a day or two before we saw it and I could treat him. I didn't have any general anesthesia for him (don't want it around the house), so all I had was some local. I picked him up, carried him to the garage, shot some local into the wound edges, cleaned it up, cut off the dead tissue and put a few silk stitches in to draw the wound closer together. Can't close it up if it's been open and infected like that, so you have to leave it open and let it heal by secondary intention. He purred the whole time. I dressed it with 4x4's and duct tape and I'd clean his wound and change the dressing twice a day. I'd come home from work and he'd be on the porch waiting for his dressing change. A couple years later, I nursed him through a couple of bad bouts of probably kitty leukemia, and he would bounce back. He liked tuna, so we would give him a can of oil packed tuna in the morning. It was cheaper than cat food at the time. You look out the glass door in the morning and he'd be sitting there looking at you, saying "I can haz tuna?" He finally passed from the tumor disorder.

Dr. Hess wrote: I had the same thing happen to me once with a snake about the size of a worm, like this one (hotlinked, not my hand):

That looks like the rough earth snakes we get around here, they love to hide in the leaf litter, so we usually find them in the fall when we are raking leaves.

Curmudgeon wrote: Lesley, have you seen 'The Gods Must Be Crazy?' There's a scene where the scientist is telling the teacher what he does out in the bush and he says 'I collect elephant dung'.

I was thinking about that movie, but the part about how the bush people deal with the snakes.

Dr. Hess wrote: Isaac was a Mancoon. He just showed up one day. Couldn't get rid of him, so he stayed. He would bring home what we called "squirrel sandwiches." They were the back half of a squirrel that he would carry around like a sandwich, and don't even try to take it away from him. One day, a coon must have got him and tore his neck open, about 3" long and down to the muscle. It was open a day or two before we saw it and I could treat him. I didn't have any general anesthesia for him (don't want it around the house), so all I had was some local. I picked him up, carried him to the garage, shot some local into the wound edges, cleaned it up, cut off the dead tissue and put a few silk stitches in to draw the wound closer together. Can't close it up if it's been open and infected like that, so you have to leave it open and let it heal by secondary intention. He purred the whole time. I dressed it with 4x4's and duct tape and I'd clean his wound and change the dressing twice a day. I'd come home from work and he'd be on the porch waiting for his dressing change. A couple years later, I nursed him through a couple of bad bouts of probably kitty leukemia, and he would bounce back. He liked tuna, so we would give him a can of oil packed tuna in the morning. It was cheaper than cat food at the time. You look out the glass door in the morning and he'd be sitting there looking at you, saying "I can haz tuna?" He finally passed from the tumor disorder.

You're a good man, Hess.