Audrey snapped this shot of our dog, Taylor, yesterday after he came home from a tough day of surgery to deal with an aural hematoma that he developed last week.  Commonly referred to as "pillow ear",  it is apparently really common in golden retrievers and less frequent in other floppy-eared dogs.  It's basically a huge swelling of the ear caused by the dog shaking his head or scratching his ear too vigorously.  It's kind of like the doggy equivalent of a hernia.  So now our dog gets to walk around with a big cone on his head for the better part of two weeks so that he won't scratch open the sutures or remove the stent they've put in his ear to drain it.

At first he was quite frightened and confused by the cone-head, which was funny because he would just sit in the middle of the living room, unable to see his feet or anything else that wasn't directly in front of him.  The anasthesia hadn't worn off so he was wanting to sleep but afraid to lie down.  So he was just sitting there and swaying back and forth trying hard not to fall over from pure exhaustion.  After we figured out what was going on, I grabbed his front legs and pulled them slowly out from under him and laid him down and he went right to sleep.

His energy is back today so he is running around the house looking like a furry half-dog, half-light bulb hybrid that gets caught on furniture and bangs into walls alot.
1:29:43 PM  #