Life with dogs… an unending saga

Saturday night, I asked #FarmerErik to call in the dogs so we could be sure to get their collars off. We had to install an invisible fence for the pups and Duke because they had started running off. It took way longer than normal. About the only proper training technique I managed with them while juggling their early pup hood with Erik’s hospitalization and recovery at home was getting them to come in the house and go straight into their crates by relic them “Go to bed.” The are well-accustomed to “go to bed” and get a Pupperoni as soon as they are in and we lock the crate doors.. So listening to him repeatedly call let me know something was up.

Unfortunately, what was up was that they, along with our Great Pyrenees livestock guard dog, Tate, had chased a porcupine had gotten quilled. Duke had gotten into one before, with our old Pyrenees, Bella, so he remembered to stay back. Both times happened on weekends when the only vets available were emergency. Extremely pricey and over an hour away. We knew what to do from the last time, and we knew there was no way we’d ever get three dogs in the car and be able to drive for an hour for a veterinarian to provide sedation, so we had to do it ourselves. Only problem was that last time, Erik was able to get down on the ground with the dogs to restrain them while #FarmerWalker pulled the quills out with pliers. The restraining portion would have to fall onto me. Olive had less than 10 quills so we started with her. She reluctantly allowed me to straddle her and hold her mouth open while Erik pulled the quills. She wasn’t happy but it was over in less than five minutes..

Poor Tate and Merle were in bad shape. Merle was scared and in pain and I ended up having to restrain him by lying on him while Walker helped hold his mouth open to let Erik get access with pliers. I felt so horrible handling him tat way, but he was going beserk running against us and the furniture trying to figure out how to get the quills out. It took almost an hour to get the quills out and it probably wasn’t until the last 10 that he finally realized our efforts were helping him and he became docile and cooperative. At the end, I was able to let him go and he laid patiently at Erik’s feet eating for the extraction to be over.

With how difficult Merle was to handle, we were scared about how Tate was going to react. If he reacted like Merle, it would be dangerous for all of us. Tate is a good 30 pounds bigger than 70 pound Merle. He is designed to ward off predators, and he frequently brings us ground hogs and raccoons he has killed to get our approval. Walker struggled just to get a leash on him. The only time he had ever been leashed before was to go to the vet to be neutered, so has some trauma there.

To our disbelief, once we had the leash on him, he sat patiently and allowed Erik and Walker to pull the quills out. Walker even sat on the ground in front of his face, eye to eye, his mouth inches from Walkers face and Tate never acted aggressively. He winced and whines at first but responded to the praise and ear scratches we were giving him after each quill was pulled. After the first few he must have realized they were helping him and he was an absolute angel for the rest. When we had pulled them all (about 100 between the two boys), I did a quick double check of Tate by running my fingers around his snout and he even allowed me to rub my fingers along the roof of his mouth! He just licked his lips when I was done, drank some water and went off to hide.

Because I had inflicted trauma on Merle to try to keep him and Erik and Walker safe, I broke out some ground beef to give to them hoping to replace the bad experience with the good memory of fresh meat hand fed to them by me. I was sure Merle would harbor resentment - Merle does’t like that I am the disciplinarian in the first pace. He always runs to Erik when I attempt to command him. Thankfully, when I called him today, he came and even rolled over for some belly rubs.

Hopefully these mongrels learned their lesson and won’t chase down a porcupine again! Just when I think things are settling down, we get thrown some excitement!

Come back and visit soon!

Jennie