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March 1, 2010

Saturday, I caught up on my dog grooming duties. Most weeks that means Lilly and only Lilly, but I decided I’d attempt to trim Ginko’s front toenails. With a muzzle and enough cheese, I can occasionally get him to cooperate. Just as I imagined myself drafting a victory blog post, our celebratory dog training jackpot went terribly wrong.

I unbuckled the muzzle and began cheering and throwing fistfuls of cheese at Ginko. My mistake was simple and stupid. I did all this while sitting on the floor.

Ginko, already amped up from the toenail trim, got even more frantic from the celebration. Just as I went to stand up, he nailed me full-on in the nose with the pterodactyl point of his head. He hit me hard. He didn’t mean to, of course, but he did.

About 2 seconds later, blood began gushing out like Ginko had turned on a faucet in my face.

It hurt so much that, at first, I didn’t know if he had split my lip or if the blood was coming from my nose.

It took 15 minutes to stem the tide.

I’m fine. The old nose isn’t broken, but he bruised my upper lip and split the area just below my nose a tiny bit.

I’m still a little sore, but I’ll be fine. Next time, I’ll be sure to get my head/face out of harm’s way before I throw a party.

About the Author Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related.

I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

  1. Ouch! My Runt is fairly prone to banging into me like this, although he’s too small to do much damage most of the time. Hope the nose heals soon.

  2. Several years ago, I was wrestling with Nikita. Doing a typical Siberian Husky move, she swatted at me with her paw, but it connected with the force of a right hook to my eye. I had to explain to co-workers the next day that my black eye and swollen face was because my Sibe had decked me.

  3. Oh no! Glad you’re alright. I’m currently sporting a scrape above my eyelid that now looks like tattooed eye shadow after trying to rev up my dog to help her recover from something scary.

    Oh, I’m not into nail trimming these days. You were brave to get in there with Ginko!

  4. OH MAN that hurts!!!!
    I had the tip of my nose split by my 18 lb. terrier once. He caught his canine in my nose (get the visual here) as we were playing face to face growling at each other having a great time. It was all a mistake but try to explain why a 12″ tall dog got your nose – well, it’s just stupid.

  5. Ooooh, glad that you’re OK. I’ve been trying to make a dog toenail clipping video showing how the MannersMinder works for R. He seriously split a nail this weekend and freaked out when I even touched it. Then, I brought out the MannersMinder. He was so obsessed that he let me clip the injured nail. He barely even looked at me when I did it.

    It only works with R, not with K. K prefers one hand-delivered treat per nail. So that’s what she gets.

    Funny how different they all are!

  6. One time I was leaping around with Maggie, when she was still a wild youngster, and I jumped down when she jumped up and whacked me in the mouth with her head. I wear my chipped tooth with pride, and will never fix it!

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