Our dog Macy got 'quilled' the other night. I'll spare my readers the discomfort and my dog the indignity of displaying pictures (which I don't have anyway, since only a heartless freak would have spent critical minutes documenting such a thing), and instead give you a picture of herself on a happier day.
The woods that surround us are full of the usual characters; I've personally witnessed deer, moose, bear, mink, fox, hawks, owls, groundhogs, and porcupines, and I've heard coyotes close enough to raise my neck hairs. Macy patrols the grounds freely – untethered, no fence – and her mere presence (her bark, scent, and lightning speed) is mostly enough to keep the wild things from encroaching.
There is an extended family of groundhogs that have burrowed in and around the yard. Any gardener knows the madness of battling them; they have an uncanny knack for clear-cutting vegetables just at their peak of readiness (and often just hours in advance of any plan you may have had for them). Last summer, Macy perfected the art of the kill, and several groundhogs that ventured too close were dead in a flash. Good dog.
But groundhogs don't put up much of a fight; there are other things that might cause her great harm if she weren't smart enough to give them a wide berth. Bears, for example. Several years ago Macy's predecessor, Pearl – a 90-pound Kuvasz, bred for guarding – went after a very large male black bear that was snacking at the bird feeders. He ran, she chased, and they got about halfway up the hill behind the house before the bear realized his advantage and turned to chase her back.
They achieved a minor detente, and he went on clearing out the feeders while she paced in the driveway below. I can only hope a similar encounter between bear and Macy – a 50-pound Border Collie / Cattle Dog mix – would end as casually.
Not so lucky with porcupines. A little after ten o'clock the other night, Macy finished her final patrol and swatted her bell to come in (we have bells mounted low inside and out on the doors, and she rings to go out, rings to come in...and sometimes rings for food or to initiate playtime). No more insistent than usual, though if you don't answer on the first she rings harder the second time, even harder the third. I opened the door on the third ring, and she squirted past me, head low, with what looked liked something in her mouth. When I turned back to look, she flailed her head lightly and I caught just enough information to know by instinct exactly what had happened, before I was actually able to process the data.
The left side of her face had two or three dozen quills stuck in it, none in her eye (thank goodness!). Another handful poked out from her shoulder. I called out to TJ, already in bed, then picked up the phone and dialed the vet (number handily in my brain's speed-dial after all these years). The answering service promised a call back in 15 minutes; 5 minutes later a vet, not ours, called. Apparently, four of the veterinarian's offices in the area have a cooperative arrangement for 'on-call' time; Tuesday night, the vet on call was in Arlington – about 30 miles from here, though all two-lane highway. I promised we'd be there in about 40 minutes.
By the time I got off the phone, TJ and the dog were already in the car. I hopped in back so that I could calm her, but she'd taken her favorite spot in the passenger seat. Oh, the gift of an even-tempered dog: she lay patiently, panting but not crying or whining, turning to look at TJ or me for reassurance. I reached both arms around the back of the seat and stroked her, and every so often she sat up and pressed herself gently back into my hands. She finally came to the back seat and lay next to me, trying to find a comfortable position – hard to lay your weary head when half your face is stuck full of hatpins.
Dr. Baum and his assistant gave her a quick exam ('He got her good') and explained that they would have to knock her out (I had assumed as much), so we had to leave her over night. In the morning when I went to pick her up, he said that the quills in her face had come out easily, but that her shoulder had required some careful surgery. Some of the quills had broken off and the points were lodged deep in the muscle (she must have either rolled on the porcupine or rolled on her shoulder trying to get the quills out). He was able to extract most of them, but likened it to a shrapnel wound – you can't do too much digging before you start to damage the muscle tissue. So: a few of the points are still in there, but will likely disintegrate over time or back themselves out.
Final tally: emergency after-hours call, anesthesia, surgery, supplies, and meds: $464. Yowzer.
She's on an antibiotic and some painkillers. Because of the remaining quills, the extent of the incisions, and her stitches, she needs to be kept from running around to prevent fluid pockets (seromas?) from developing. Yesterday, she had no interest in anything but sleep. This morning, she was revved up and ready to patrol, but I had to leash her and wander in the woods with her. We can look forward to several days of this.
While giving her a belly rub this morning, I felt something hard under the skin of her chest, thin and about an inch long. I rolled her over and carefully worked another piece of quill out of her. I present as evidence:
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