The Well Behaved Dingo

Scherzo tried to play with a porcupine today and got a chin full of quills, a funny little goatee of them. She didn’t even seem to notice them until I pulled out my leatherman and tried to remove one. Well, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to sit still, that it would be very painful and that we have no skill at removing fish-hook barbs from a moving target. So, I thought I would just take her up the road to the vet where they could sedate her, saving her a lot of pain.

The problem was that when I called them they said “O.K., bring her over and you can pick her up tomorrow”. Well, even with sedation there is no medical reason she would need to stay overnight. I was very against that idea, I thought maybe if we could do it here it would be a short period of pain rather than hours alone all night, which I know she would not tolerate without stress and would not help her heal, plus would break my little heart.

So we walked around to Randy’s shop to see if he could help. He knows alot about animals and had removed quills before- he has the knowledge but…he’s Randy. I knew he would probably take over, do it way too harshly, and just make it like a battle rather than something we are doing to help Scherzo heal. I think intentions really affect whether something is traumatising, and I knew I was right in being hesitant to ask him for help when he immediatley launched into a yelled lecture concerning what was about to happen:

“If you have a weak stomach for these things you need to clear out! There’s gonna be a lot of screaming…Can you tie her up with this rope?”

Well, I knew at that that we had to go to the vet. I told him I had changed my mind, that I didn’t want to do it that way. As I was leaving he said,

“hey, you know the best thing you could have done? When she went and got those quills in her you should have picked a willow switch and beat her right there so she never does that again. “

Sometimes I can’t believe I know a person who says things like that. But I get the feeling he says things like that to me because he knows I completely disagree and because he’s trying to prove something to me…how MANLY he is, what a HARDASS. He continued on,

“I’m going to tell you a story. When I was seven years old I had a dog. The sun rose and set on that dog and one day he wandered into the street and got hit by a car. He was crippled, sort of dragging his back half around. People didn’t take dogs to the vet back then, they just didn’t do it. Well, my uncle got the shotgun and we took the dog out. He explained to me that when you own a dog you own the responsibility for its life. And he made me shoot it right there.”

hmmmmm. A very telling story. I too think I have a responsibility for my dog, but my responsibility is to care for her as best I can…and mostly to save her from people like Randy. Fighting over who shoots a mortally wounded dog with a gun is more about human’s fucked up morality and pedagogy than anything; its probably immaterial to the dog. I think Randy thinks I’m not capable of pulling those quills out if I had to,which isn’t true.

So anyway, we ended up driving to the vet. I didn’t like them just trying to take over with her medical care, making it like a drive through window. Oooh no, I wanted to know what specific drugs she would be getting etc. etc. THEIR plan was that she would be sedated, have the quills removed and then wake up after everyone had left, alone in a cement kennel all night “with kibble and water”, they cheerfully mentioned. No one would be monitoring her and she would be fully awake. I made a slight scene in the vet’s office so that she wouldn’t have to stay over night, I mentioned leaving AMA which I’m not even sure is a term in the animal world. But it worked and I think I saved myself about $100.

We picked her up no more than and hour and a half later, as soon as I walked in I heard her bark, well atleast she was awake! Her harness was on all wrong and she really had to pee but other than that she seemed completely normal. She was so cute prancing out from the back to see us.

When we got back to the cabin though, we noticed she was a bit on the groggy side. She looked so tired and she just stood there, and would swaaay to one side and then swaaay back. It reminded me of when Randy was on drugs and was stumbling around the house yelling about God’s dandruff and cleaning chandelliers. I finally convinced Scherzo to lay down (she was staring off into space and looked right past my down signal) at which point she flopped with her head on my leg and fell asleep. Later she was too spent to munch on a meaty bone so I gave her two eggs which she lapped right up. She slept on Mac’s lap in the rocking chair for a good hour and a half, which, if you know her, is crazy! Let’s hope there is no porcupine playtime tomorrow.