Theo's Christmas Gift

The morning of Christmas Eve I woke up with Valentine curled against my back and little Theo in my arms. A perfect way to wake up, if you ask me. I yawned and blinked the sleep out of my eyes and Theo yawned and rolled over for a belly rub. I started scritching and scratching his belly and his chest and he wriggled all over with happiness. I reached down to scratch my favorite place on his little body - his teddy-bear bottom. I'm not talking about his anus, which is directly underneath his tail, I'm talking about the soft, padded, fluffy part behind his back legs. So I'm scratching that and then I notice what feels like four or five very small scabs. I can't see anything, but I make a mental note to keep an eye on the area in case he's chewing it raw. (When he's bored he chews at himself. I'm pretty good about keeping chews around to prevent self-mutilation-out-of-boredom, but sometimes he chews himself anyway, so I'm forever worried.)

Christmas morning I woke up the same way and gave Theo a similar rubdown. This time, I noticed more little scabs. I took a good look at the area and saw that some of the little scabs were hanging in his fur, so I plucked one out for a closer look. It didn't look like much and his skin didn't look irritated or anything, so again, I made a mental note to keep an eye on it.

At this point I should have asked my friend Val, who's home we were staying in, what she thought of the little scabs. Since she has both bred and rescued dogs, she'd probably have known. But I wasn't that concerned and by the time I'd made it into her kitchen for coffee I had forgotten all about it.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. We'd let the dogs sleep in bed with us again, and even though it was the third night in a row, it still felt like a special treat. Again I woke up with little Theo, sweet in my arms. I gave him his morning rubdown and made sure to check his bottom to see if anything had changed. The little scabs were still there, but no worse than they'd been. However, when I got out of bed I noticed that the bed was full of little scabs. Little scabs sprinkled all over my sheets like cookie crumbs. Did I mention that they were all over my sheets? The sheets on my bed where I sleep?

"That is very strange." I wondered out-loud.

"What is?" Mike asked.

"Theo is shedding little scabs all over our sheets."

I pointed to the scattering of scabs sprinkled all over my side of the bed. Mike had no idea what they were either, but he suggested we collect them in a small container and bring them to our veterinarian, just to be on the safe side. Then we changed our sheets and decided the dogs could just go back to sleeping in their crates, that would be perfectly all right with us. I checked Theo's bottom several more times throughout the day because by now I was a little bit worried, but nothing changed. The scabs didn't look any worse, I never caught him chewing the area, it was a complete mystery. And then this morning he shit a pile of live worms.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!