The Gum Disaster

Thursday afternoon I took Sam out like normal and when he came inside, he laid down on the end of the couch, like he always does.  A few minutes later I noticed something white on the arm of the couch and went to brush it off, thinking it was lint or something (Sam attracts all sorts of things and tracks them into the house).  The white stuff was sticky and didn't move.  I then realized it was gum that was stuck to my couch.  

I began searching Sam's beard and mouth, thinking he had found gum somewhere outside and had tried to eat it.  I couldn't find any so I went to move him so I could get the gum off the couch and when he lifted his paw, I saw there was a huge glob of gum stuck to his front paw.  

I got him off the couch and grabbed a wet rag and tried to pull the gum off.  Sam is very hairy and the gum, along with some grass and dirt and other particles, were cemented to his little paw.  I couldn't remove any of it and he started looking at me all pitiful like he was in trouble.  I tried talking to him and telling him that Mommy was not mad at him, that it wasn't his fault, but that we had to get the gum out of his paw.  So I did what any reasonable person would do.  I texted Cory and called my Daddy.  

My Dad said to try peanut butter since that works on human hair.  So I grabbed Sam, the big jar of peanut butter, and we sat down in the kitchen floor.  I rubbed a huge glob of peanut butter into his paw and nothing was happening.  I should probably tell you now that I was using Jif crunchy peanut butter-not the smartest move on my part.  Since it was crunchy, all it did was make a bigger mess and cause little peanut pieces to stick to the gum as well.  And Jif is the least oily peanut butter I know of so I had that going against me as well. So now I had a very unhappy dog with gum and peanut butter covering his paw.  I tried to wash it off but he was afraid of the sink sprayer.  So I did the next reasonable thing.  I grabbed him and went to the vet.

Thankfully our vet office is literally our next door neighbor so I just left him in my lap as I drove the car 10 feet.  I took him inside and asked if they could get the mess out of his paw.  They laughed at my attempt with crunchy peanut butter and took him back to the back.  While I was waiting, I texted my Dad and told him we were at the vet office because I had just made a bigger mess with the peanut butter.  My Dad sent back "I meant to tell you not to use crunchy!!"  and about that time Cory finally texted me back and said I would probably have to amputate Sam's paw.   I was feeling like a bad Mommy at that point.

They brought Sam back a few minutes later with a shaved paw.  They said they weren't able to get anything out and thought it best they just shave it all out.  They sent me on my way without charging me anything.  When he got home, I went to work on getting the gum out of my couch and Sam crashed on the couch.  I sent this picture to Cory and my Dad with the caption "Traumatic experiences wear him out"