Poor Maggie.
Our gentle, shy Great Pyrenees has spent late winter and early spring trying to control, in vain, the skunks who like making holes in our lawn to get to the grubs. (At some point, if & when I’m face to face with God, I’m going to ask her why she had to make elements of the food chain so unpleasant.) So we’ve spent much of late winter and early spring smelling eau de skunk on her and in the house. (You know you’ve lived in the country for a long time when you no longer want to get sick at the smell of skunk.)
But this a.m., Maggie outdid herself. Not with a skunk. A porcupine.
I thought I was in a bad dream when I awakened this morning to see Maggie next to the bed. It took me a bit to realize I was awake, and Maggie really did have quills coming out of her face.
I didn’t understand the mechanism of injury, but the vet filled me in. Maggie comes across porcupine and attacks. Porcupine has quills – but her urge to attack overwhelms any pain response, at least while the attack is occurring. I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that the porcupine probably lost the fight.
Anyhow, Maggie spent the day at the vet, part of it under anaesthesia. Her shoulder and leg also took a beating, and some quills had to be surgically removed from those areas. I should have asked how many quills total were recovered, but I forgot. I bet it was in the hundreds. She’s home now, resting (not sure how comfortably). And she’s on antibiotics and other meds for 2 weeks.
I hope she’s learned her lesson. But if her skunk experiences are any indication, she hasn’t.