About a week ago we arrived home to discover that Kanti had been in close contact with a porcupine. It was inevitable that it would happen, the porcupines scuttle across the swake now and then moving much faster than it appears they should be able to. If I was proportionately as round and stumpy I certainly wouldn't be able to move nearly as fast or climb trees with the agility they do. Anyway, Kanti had the remnants of about 15 quills hanging off of her face and her right paw. She looked like a teenager who had gotten carried away with body piercing as she stuck her face into the vehicle to welcome us home.
Greg found the needle nose pliers after a brief time of rummaging through the toolbox, all the while accompanying his search with a stream of grumbling about the stupid toolbox and needing drawers in the garage etc. I watched it all gingerly from a distance, not wanting Kanti to drive the quills in further or break them off by rubbing against me. I was also a little leery of getting in the way of the large grumbling bear in my garage also known as my husband. Kanti did what she does best, she followed Greg's every step waiting patiently for him to fix the ridiculous situation she found herself in.
She was remarkably compliant, sitting on command immediately and allowing Greg to pull the quills out. There was no whining or whimpering and very little wrestling was required to accomplish the task. It was all over so quickly that we don't even have a photo.
At least we thought it was over. The past few days Kanti has been worrying at her right paw. She has been gnawing at it and subjecting it to intense rounds of licking. We checked it several times wondering if we had missed a quill but we couldn't see or feel a thing, so we waited. Apart from the preoccupation with her paw she seemed quite fine.
But her level of fineness changed yesterday morning when she came into the house for breakfast limping like a wounded soldier, not wanting to put any weight onto that poor paw. Somehow overnight it had gone from her worrying the paw to it being painful. A trip to the vet was in order, and that is definitely a Greg-job.
I haven't ever taken Kanti to the vet and I intend to keep things that way. When I imagine having to take Kanti to the vet by myself I get cold sweats thinking about one hundred plus pounds of German Shepherd dragging me around on the end of a leash trying to make friends with the various cats that live at the vet clinic. I envision being completely incapable of getting her onto the examining table because she weighs nearly as much as I do and she probably wouldn't really want to be up on a table anyway. I fear that she would suddenly eat the hamster that some young child was holding on their laps as they waited for their appointment and being responsible for the lifelong trauma that would entail. I worry about the vet thinking we are really bad pet parents because of Kanti's exuberance. For all these reasons and many more, I don't take Kanti to the vet and never will.
So, the task of taking Kanti to the vet falls to Greg who always lies to me when he comes home from a vet visit. Bald-faced lies, I'm sure. He tells me, "She was good as gold. She only licked the kid's hamster she didn't eat it, and Dr. Amy thinks Kanti is very well-behaved." Seriously, she doesn't chase the cats? She lies on the examining table and doesn't try to lick Dr. Amy's makeup off her face? Between you and I, I really have trouble reconciling Greg's account of vet visits and my imaginings of what a Kanti vet visit would be like. But, he took her and it went fabulously as it always does, or at least that is what Greg told me.
Kanti was a perfect angel, allowing them to examine her paw. Apparently there is a piece of quill in her paw that is causing a bit of infection. It isn't visible to the eye and will work its way out but in the meantime we are hiding chunks of antibiotic pills and dribbling anti-inflammatory drops into her food twice a day. All of this has made our lovely hound a little less exuberant than normal, not quite herself and I am finding that I miss her crazy happy-go-lucky energy. Get better soon Kanti!
Greg found the needle nose pliers after a brief time of rummaging through the toolbox, all the while accompanying his search with a stream of grumbling about the stupid toolbox and needing drawers in the garage etc. I watched it all gingerly from a distance, not wanting Kanti to drive the quills in further or break them off by rubbing against me. I was also a little leery of getting in the way of the large grumbling bear in my garage also known as my husband. Kanti did what she does best, she followed Greg's every step waiting patiently for him to fix the ridiculous situation she found herself in.
She was remarkably compliant, sitting on command immediately and allowing Greg to pull the quills out. There was no whining or whimpering and very little wrestling was required to accomplish the task. It was all over so quickly that we don't even have a photo.
At least we thought it was over. The past few days Kanti has been worrying at her right paw. She has been gnawing at it and subjecting it to intense rounds of licking. We checked it several times wondering if we had missed a quill but we couldn't see or feel a thing, so we waited. Apart from the preoccupation with her paw she seemed quite fine.
But her level of fineness changed yesterday morning when she came into the house for breakfast limping like a wounded soldier, not wanting to put any weight onto that poor paw. Somehow overnight it had gone from her worrying the paw to it being painful. A trip to the vet was in order, and that is definitely a Greg-job.
I haven't ever taken Kanti to the vet and I intend to keep things that way. When I imagine having to take Kanti to the vet by myself I get cold sweats thinking about one hundred plus pounds of German Shepherd dragging me around on the end of a leash trying to make friends with the various cats that live at the vet clinic. I envision being completely incapable of getting her onto the examining table because she weighs nearly as much as I do and she probably wouldn't really want to be up on a table anyway. I fear that she would suddenly eat the hamster that some young child was holding on their laps as they waited for their appointment and being responsible for the lifelong trauma that would entail. I worry about the vet thinking we are really bad pet parents because of Kanti's exuberance. For all these reasons and many more, I don't take Kanti to the vet and never will.
So, the task of taking Kanti to the vet falls to Greg who always lies to me when he comes home from a vet visit. Bald-faced lies, I'm sure. He tells me, "She was good as gold. She only licked the kid's hamster she didn't eat it, and Dr. Amy thinks Kanti is very well-behaved." Seriously, she doesn't chase the cats? She lies on the examining table and doesn't try to lick Dr. Amy's makeup off her face? Between you and I, I really have trouble reconciling Greg's account of vet visits and my imaginings of what a Kanti vet visit would be like. But, he took her and it went fabulously as it always does, or at least that is what Greg told me.
Kanti was a perfect angel, allowing them to examine her paw. Apparently there is a piece of quill in her paw that is causing a bit of infection. It isn't visible to the eye and will work its way out but in the meantime we are hiding chunks of antibiotic pills and dribbling anti-inflammatory drops into her food twice a day. All of this has made our lovely hound a little less exuberant than normal, not quite herself and I am finding that I miss her crazy happy-go-lucky energy. Get better soon Kanti!
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