Monday, May 3, 2010

Pain in the Ass

She was having such a good week.  She went from being Gidge the Hippy...


...to a day at the beauty parlour and a new fresh 'do for summer...

(isn't she cute?)

...to being an emergency room patient all in the span of about 48 hours.

Poor Gidgey.

Something wicked this way came.

And took a bite out of her ass.

And now, she's just pathetic.

As is evidenced by this:


pick me up...please??

And this:

see how sad I am?  not to mention sore?


And this...

nothin' like a warm shoulder to lie on


So here's what happened.  Late on Friday night, on the last just-before-bed-piddle-run the two dogs encountered an intruder on our property.  Rather than doing the sensible thing...like running back to our door and asking to be let back in, our two adventure-seekers sought out the intruder to say "hey, what the hell?  this is OUR yard!  get out!"

The intruder must have thought he'd hit the jackpot - spying a rascally rabbit running through the yard at 10:30 at night - can you say frickasee??

Alas, it wasn't rabbit.  It was Gidget.  

I opened the door to call the dogs back in and all I could hear were the blood-curdling screams of our little dog being attacked  by what we think might have been a fox.  Or a coyote.  Or a really bad ass raccoon.  But most likely a fox.  The sounds of her screams have been seared into my memory for life.  I hope I never hear anything like it ever again.

I bolted blindly into the pitch black yard, screaming to the dogs to come and that's when the 10-pounds of fury kicked in and Gidge wrassled her way free from the jaws of death and came tearing toward me, leaping into my arms.  I only realized once I got them back inside that Gidge was bleeding all over my pretty apple green cardigan that I like to wear so much.

Poor Buzz.  He wasn't even here for all the excitement.  Stuck in the hotel as manager on duty all he got was a panicked phone call from me screaming "Gidge has been attacked and she's bleeding all over me - meet me at the emergency room - we're on the way!!!"  Click.

That's gotta be a hard way to wake up out of a dead sleep.

So, I bundled the battered, bruised and bloody girl up and drove to town - what normally takes 20-25 minutes to drive only took 13 on Friday night.   Funny that.

Unlike a people hospital, the emergency room at the veterinarian hospital isn't open 24-hours a day.  But we lucked in because a very tired intern was just finishing up with another patient and just about to head home as I careened into the parking lot on two wheels.  Even though we had no appointment (which by the way - isn't that contrary to the whole concept of "emergency" patient?) he took us in and inspected the damaged little dog.

Adrenaline is a funny thing.  It kicks in in the case of emergency and once it's coursing through your system you feel like superman.  So there was our bloody superman-girl-dog walking around the exam room with her gaping wound, but acting like nothing was wrong.  She was so hopped up on the hormones she didn't feel any pain.  She was, however, scared to death having just survived an attack from behind and escaping the jaws of death.

The young doc cleaned her up, sent us home with a prescription for possible infection and the advice that perhaps it's a good idea to keep the dogs on a leash at night, especially at this time of year when all the other varmints are feeling particularly frisky.  Right.  Got it.

Ever since our Friday Night Fright the Gidge has been attached to me - literally.  She has not left my lap or shoulder for two days.    Funny that this little dog, who only has eyes for Buzz really is a mama's girl when it comes down to it.  Funnier still?  I always thought that in a fight  my money would be on the Gidge.   Nice to know that when the chips are down she can hold her own.