Summer Misadventures part 2: Terrier Toughness
With Junebug’s newly remembered ability to jump fences, we have necessarily changed our dog park routine. One of the things I’ve done is to encourage the dogs to play on the Beagle Eating HillTM, a hill safely in the middle of the dog park which is covered in blackberry brambles, trees, and tall grass. Bunnies, very brave bunnies, live on this hill.
In the past, losing the dogs to the Beagle Eating HillTM was not something we looked forward to, let along encouraged. But if Junebug and Larry are going to run through brambles hunting for bunnies, I would much rather have them do that in a place inside the park than outside it. So, they have brambled, a lot.
And the truth is, on some level, it is a joy to watch Junebug follow her nose through the undergrowth and flush out the rabbits. This is what she was bred to do, and she obviously loves it.
Larry loves it, too. This makes sense. He’s a terrier. While not bred for the exact same thing as June, hunting small creatures makes him happy. (I should note that neither of the dogs has ever done anything other than flush bunnies. Nothing has been caught; nothing has been killed.)
The problem is, Beagles are built for pushing through the brambles. June’s coat catches thorns, but rarely are they able to make it through to her skin. Not so much with Larry. Thorns make it into his skin on a regular basis. And then there was the day when Larry caught his ear on something.
I heard a short sound. It was not quite Junebug’s beagle-ing sound, but it lasted only a moment, and then there was nothing else. I could hear both dogs still moving through the underbrush, so I did not worry about it much. Maybe 10 minutes later, I finally caught a glimpse of Larry, and noticed that he appeared to be covered in blood.
I tried calling to him, but he was too interested in what he was doing to pay any attention to me. He obviously did not think anything was wrong with him. This made me wonder if he had actually caught something, if the blood belonged to a creature other than him.
About 20 minutes after that, Junebug finally decided she was ready for a drink and came to the fence. I lifted her over, put the leash on her, and started walking to the water station. Larry, as he always does, jumped the fence and followed us.
At the water station, I used some water to try and wash Larry off. I learned two things- the blood was his (I got some fresh droplets on me), but that he was more annoyed with me putting water on his face and side than he was hurt. In fact, as we walked away from the water fountain (both dogs now on leash), he dropped to the ground and rubbed the side I’d gotten wet in the grass, spreading blood all down his side.
It looked AWFUL, but he seemed to have no idea he was injured.
As we were walking up the stairs and out of the park, a police officer came in. It’s not odd to see officers at the park- the parking lot is a high car prowl area, lots of break-ins, so the cops check in fairly often. But they don’t often come into the park. I said hello to him on the way out, and didn’t think much about it.
I got the dogs to the car and gave C a call. I wanted to let him know that I’d be coming home with a bloody Larry dog, and also mentioned at least twice that I thought it looked worse than it was. We would be home in 10 minutes or so.
On the way out of the parking lot, I noticed that police officer walking around at the top of the bramble area, the area where Larry had been running around covered in blood. It occurred to me that maybe someone had called the police to report an injured dog. I did not, however, stop. Because I had an injured dog, and I wanted to get him home and get a better look at it. (I feel kind of bad about this.)
At home, C was a little freaked out. Larry had blood all over one side of his face, and down the side of his body, too, thanks to his rubbing himself in the grass. There was a badly matted section right on the top of his head, and we were both convinced that’s where the injury was.
We were wrong; there was dried blood there, but no injury. It turned out that Larry had managed to
These pictures were taken AFTER C had already spent about 20 minutes getting Larry cleaned up
catch the end of his floppy ear on something and cut it up. Much like head injuries with people, ear injuries in dogs bleed, a lot.
We spent time cleaning Larry up and pulling some stickers from his ear, and putting some antiseptic on the ear, but that was it. Larry was mostly annoyed with us for holding him in place. As far as he was concerned, he’d had a brief moment of pain when he caught his ear, but had been fine ever since.