Well last time I barked about chasing chickens and ducks, and those were some fun adventures, so this time I thought I’d tell you all about one holiday full of excitement, that taught me a lesson or two… and took us to the vet in the middle of the night!

This adventure is pretty funny in hindsight, but it was not so hilarious at the time. See, mom and dad used to live in a little first-floor apartment in Chapel Hill, where I had no yard of my own to run and play in. But, there was a shared back yard that bordered a stream and some woods that they used to let me run around in and play fetch – shh! Don’t tell the landlord! Well most of the time, I was very good about running after the ball and then coming straight back to our porch, but sometimes, when I smelled something really stinky (and therefore, irresistible), I sort of forgot about the fetch game and went exploring, in search of exciting creatures that might be leaving the scent. Mom usually got pretty upset when I did this and scolded me, so – since I’m incredibly smart – I’d usually just come back and put my guilty look on so that she’d feel sorry for me. It wasn’t that I meant to be bad, sometimes you just can’t help yourself!

So one time in particular, I caught a really good scent and went after it. I was sure I could find something great to bring back home, I mean, who could be upset if I “retrieved” something, right? So I went through the bushes. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Hopped the creek. Wag, wag, hop! And began winding around the trees in the forest. Sniffing, hopping, wagging, and rustling the leaves as I went, nose up and down, to the ground, to the air, tracking, tracking, tracking! Until - OUCH! Something stung and burned all at the same time! I didn’t know if I’d gotten stung or bitten or what, but I did NOT like it, and I went sprinting home! I was so surprised that I forgot to even look guilty, and when mom let me in, she sent me to my bed beside the couch in the living room for time out.

I wanted to show mom my owwie, so I went over and put my head in her lap. She told me to go back to my bed, which I did, but then I went back to her and put my head back in her lap again. By this time, it was getting a little hard to see. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like my fur was getting in my eyes. Also, my lips felt weird, like I’d just gotten a collagen injection or something. Mom looked down at me this time and gasped. “Why is your face all swollen?!” Ahh, “swollen”, that’s what this weird feeling was.

Well it was about 9:30 at night by then, and we lived 30 minutes from the vet’s office – AND it was Halloween, but mom was really worried about me, so went all the way there. Dad drove, mom sat in the passenger’s seat, and I sat on mom. I thought that was pretty cool since I weigh about 60 lbs and usually have to sit in the back seat, but mom said that since I didn’t feel well, she’d make an exception. It kind of made me want to be swollen all the time!

When we got there, some crazy lady with Halloween hair pins and Halloween socks met us at the door, followed by a poodle and a bulldog. Mom said we were at the vet, but this was definitely a cooler vet than I’d met before! She looked me over, gave me a few shots and some medicine, and in just a little while I stopped looking like a Sharpei (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not my style), and my normal Golden face returned.

I guess I could say the lesson I learned was not to go chasing after exciting smells, but that would be a lie, since I still do that. The real lesson is to make sure you don’t get bitten in the face when you’re sniffing through the leaf piles! Or at least if you do, make sure you do it on Halloween so you can pretend you meant to dress up as a Sharpei!

Tags: CareFirst Animal Hospital, dog, Raleigh

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Petcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.