Monday, January 21, 2008
It started with a knock on the door...
...and then a frightened and frazzled looking young girl telling M, "Do you have a dalmatian? I hit your dalmatian." As M opened the door Jake bolted inside so M didn't even know he was hurt. Then we looked closer and Jake was trailing blood and limping. Oh, no. The girl says, "I know he's hurt, I really hit him." M thanks her and she goes on her way. We examine Jake the best we can and we see lots of lacerations and scrapes, blood coming from his mouth, a skinned spot on the top of his head, and maybe a split toe. It looks like he was rolled because he has black marks all over him.

Now here's the part that hurts. Our veterinarian hung up his practice in December. There isn't a single veterinarian in the county. We've never been to anyone else with our dogs. I picked up the phone and called the one in the nearest county. Fortunately she doesn't live all that far over the line, maybe a forty minute ride. I explain to her the situation. She agreed to come in for us. Of course she warned us about the emergency fee. Great, we really have no choice, do we?

So M walked away from the supper cooking on the stove and loaded Jake up in the truck. Now they're gone. It's been an hour since he left and I haven't heard anything. I'm hoping all of Jakes injuries are superficial. All the bleeding from the mouth worries me, but it looked like it could have actually been a mouth injury. I hope I'll hear something soon.

UPDATE: M just called. It was just as I'd hoped, mostly superficial wounds. The mouth bleeding was a wound inside his mouth, nothing internal. Nothing is broken. Jake will be on antibiotics and painkillers. The vet said he was going to be very sore for a while. Even the split toe won't need stitches, but it will be really sore while it heals. Ugh. And all this cost ninety-couple dollars, seventy of which was the emergency office visit fee. I'd say we got off really lucky on this one.

Jake has lived on this farm and along that road for over ten years now. I really can't understand why he would put himself in the position to get hit now. But honestly, it was a good lesson to him, I'm sure, and a good lesson to Emma. We spent quite a bit of time at dinner discussing Jake's injury and I reinforced to Emma why it's so important to remember that cars are dangerous.
Written at 7:54 PM by Highlandgal.
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