Ollie's Close Call

First, a confession:  I trespass over neighboring hay fields every day, my dogs in tow.  So whatever happens to us, you may say we asked for it.

Blatant trespassing.

Walking the dogs is, by far, the easiest thing I do all day.  We walk every day, rain or shine, hot or cold.  A beagle simply will not let you shirk out of her daily exercise routine.  Most of the time, our walks are pleasant.  But not always.

Leave it to a beagle to put her nose where it doesn't belong.  Ollie is so game when she is outside, she goes after every scent.  It never occurred to me that she would literally stir up a hornet's nest, but it is exactly what she did.  They had a nest in the ground, in a field we'd traversed hundreds of times.  Before I realized what she was into, angry hornets fumed up and we all began to run.  The dogs are on 26 foot leads, and the fleet-footed Annie was pulling me along, and luckily safely away from the hornets.  But little short-legged Ollie wasn't so lucky.  I saw her biting at her back as we ran and after a few adrenaline-fueled seconds, we were no longer pursued.

Ollie wasn't right.  She immediately had a bout of diarrhea, followed immediately by vomiting.  Next, she plowed her muzzle into the grass, and then she collapsed.  I stood there for a few seconds before it clicked in my brain what was happening to her:  anaphylaxis.

I scooped up my lethargic beagle and started to carry her home.  She was completely limp.  We were about a half a mile from the house, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to run with her, so Annie and I walked as fast as we could.  A couple of times, Ollie stopped breathing, and I laid her down on the ground, expecting to witness her death.  But there was something about being on her side on the ground that always revived her breathing.

Unbelievably to me, I carried Ollie all the way up the hill to the house.  I laid her on her side on the couch and called the vet.  They told me to give her a Benadryl tablet and get her to their clinic as fast as I could.

We looked bad.  I remember walking into the clinic holding her and an elderly man was standing at the counter waiting to pay his bill.  He looked up at us with a pleasant expression, but as soon as his eyes fell on Ollie, he looked away quickly, his face dropping.  The techs were expecting us and got her into an exam room right away, and the doc was there a few seconds later.  They checked her vital signs, got a quick history of what happened, and asked my permission to treat her aggressively.  My little bench leg beagle was whisked away to begin emergency treatment immediately.  There was nothing left for me to do but go home and wait for their call.

She survived.  She was given a steroid, some IV fluids, some anti-nausea drugs to keep her from vomiting, and who knows what else.  The clinic considered transferring her to the all-night emergency vet clinic, but decided to let me take her home that night instead, with instructions to get her to the emergency clinic immediately if she began vomiting or showing any sign of distress.  She had five huge angry welts from the hornet venom.

Sick bay.

Still feeling a bit puny.

 

We were lucky.  We were lucky the vet clinic was only a 20 minute drive, and that they had the ability to take her as an emergency.  We were lucky that she didn't go into a coma before the vet could treat her.  Stings are part of country living; I get one big, juicy wasp sting every year, whereas the yellow jackets prefer my husband and always find a way to sting him when he is mowing.  We have also been lucky that our stings, while very very annoying, have never been life threatening.

Ollie made a full recovery, for which I am thankful.  She is good company, despite her penchant for rooting up trouble.  And I am much more careful when out in the fields, although I still trespass daily.

The Blogosphere

Having been a blogger for a year now, I must ask the question:  is my contribution worthy?

more MincingMockingbird genius

I read a few other blogs regularly.  The best are ones that combine good writing with a killer sense of humor.  I still think Hamish Cargill is the best blog writer ever, but, sadly, he's gone legit with a proper day job (in an office!) and he doesn't blog anymore.  A couple of my other favorites are stellar writers and although they don't tend to employ humor in their writing, their posts are so well written that it doesn't matter.

(There are blogs that are just plain cringe-worthy.  These are the blogs that must have begun as some sort of catharsis for their writers.  And while there is little doubt that cathartic pieces are great for the writer, I find them to be horrible for the reader.  To these writers might I suggest a good old pen and private paper journal.  There may even be kits available for grinding axes in the comfort of your own home.)

Admit it, bloggers, the stats page is the first place you look when you log in every morning.  That first post to get lots of "likes" and "shares" on Facebook thrills you to no end and becomes your fevered goal for all future posts.  Stats tell you not only how many hits, but from which op systems and browsers people are accessing, and from what country they do this.  To my readers in Latvia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Russia:  I know you're not reading my brilliant posts, and please stop using my stats page to try and get me to click on your malware links.  But thank you anyway for the inflated stats.

You'll notice I dodged that question about my contributions being worthy.  I'm tempted to go to my stats page to answer this.  Truthfully, I have fallen short of my humor goal.  I place a premium on witty and strive to hit that mark; if your reader doesn't get a kick out of reading your post then why bother.

I have also employed that time-tested technique that goes like this:  when you can't think of a topic for a blog post, use lots of photos with captions instead.