I came to travel upon a road that was thorned and narrow....

Doot, doot, doo.  Dum diddy dum.  Walking with my pack.  It's really nice out.  I just had my suppertime, which was way yumbers.  I saw my buddy, Snow, this morning.  Nobody else is around right now.  Oh, hey!  Let's go by the creek.  There's always fun stuff to sniff over there....  Yipes!  What was that?  Ow, my foot hurts.  Let me see....I can walk. Sort of.  Ow! No, it really hurts!!!  

Then what ever it is goes away, but it comes back.  I have to keep lifting my leg up.  But I made it home.  Mom is washing my foot and I don't know what Dad is doing.  He isn't taking a picture of my foot, but he is holding something up to it.....hmmmm.  

All that fuss, but it still burns!  It's making me crazy!  I WANT TO PULL MY CLAWS OUT! Agggghhhhhh!

It was a perfectly gorgeous autumn afternoon and Harry was enjoying the evening walk.  Then I saw him look up at me.....wha???  He started lifting his back foot and trying to bop around on three legs.  Uh oh.  We tried our best to check his paw, between the pads, on the pads.  I couldn't see anything.

He managed to get home but was clearly uncomfortable.  So, I soaked a paper towel in warm water and wiped down his foot.  He was still miserable.  We turned all the lights up and got a magnifying glass and inspected his paw.  Nothing.  I was worried there was a sliver of glass embedded that we couldn't see.

With that, my husband walked back to the place where I told him Harry looked at me with alarm.  It was barberry.  Barberry is a thorny bush and someone had just trimmed one but didn't clean up very well.  I've been pricked by barberry, so I know that it can sting and burn for quite some time.  But at least we knew what it was and that the discomfort would be temporary.

Yes, indeed!  Our boy was his happy self again in the morning.  He even did wiggle worm across the bedroom floor!

Be careful out there!

( blog title lyrics from "Play Me"  Diamond, N. 1972)