Airedales ruin Sunday

We had plans on Sunday to work on the improvements to the corrals and do some thing's with Wildairo but our dogs ruined our plans.

I let out our two Airedales Terriers out Sunday morning only to have them disappear for three or four hours. Firing a gun in the air or firecrackers (the big ones) will usually bring them running home. After what sounded like the beginning of World War Three or an Iraqi wedding, no Airedales showed up. We all knew what that meant, they were way over by the creek and they had found a...........



PORCUPINE!

Montie only had about twenty quills and I pulled them out with pliers. Bobby on the other hand had decided to go for the gold medal in 'Porcupine Quilling'. It's a sport that terriers really excel at. We had a cow that tried her hand (hoof) at it once and managed to get a nice load in her legs (?), ears, nose and even her eye lids. Foxsun, as a two year old tried his luck at quilling but gave up after half a dozen in his soft little horse nose.

We pulled out as many quills from Bobby's neck as we could so she could be handled. There was a few very close to her eye and I really thought she loose an eye this time. I pulled out the ones the were where an immediate threat to her eyesight but one quill disappeared into her eye lid. Most of the quills were in the roof of her mouth.

Porcupine quills are very sharp and barbed. Once in the skin they don't fall out but keep traveling through the body. I will pull them through her lips instead of back out because it hurts her less. When you pull quills out of a dog's nose the dog goes berserk because of the pain. My dogs don't bite but they jump around so much it's almost impossible to get the pliers to grab on to the quills without doing more damage. I don't go rushing off to the vets over anything little thing, I even treated Bobby's rattlesnake bit myself with Benedryl, but this time with so many quills in her throat and around her eyes we had to put her to sleep to get them out.

Here's Bobby arriving at the vets.



Bobby had some ideas of her own but I told her I don't negotiate with terriers

The Moses Lake vet clinic is 50 miles from our ranch. The new vet was a lovely young women whom we'd never met before. She gave Bobby sleepy time medicine in her leg vein but Bobby still wiggled when we went for the mother load in her nose, so she got a jab in the muscle. The vet, Brad and I all worked on pulling the quills out as fast as we could but there was so many she started to wake up before we were finished so she got gassed. Usually she's the one gassing us! William was studying the dog breed chart in the front office. I told him to pick out a nice breed for our next dog, one that looked like it had more sense.

The vet had to cut the skin near her eye to get a quill out that might have ended up blinding her. Bobby had her rabies booster and penicillin. When I got her home I trimmed her and gave her a bath so she look smart in her new collar. In all the excitement poor Wildairo got ignored and had a completely carrotless day. He should show Bobby the business end of his hoof for that.

Here's a picture of Bobby being nice to a baby robbin.