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Close Encounter of an Equine KindMay 24, 2008 So I stopped by the barn on my way back from town this morning. I'm not usually in Vineyard Haven in the a.m., but I and another playwright were being interviewed for the Morning, Noon, and Night program on one of the local cable stations (more about that tomorrow maybe), and I don't usually go to the barn in the morning either, but Dolci was ailing yesterday and I wanted to see how she was. She was better. Ginny and I were sitting at the bottom of the hill next to the barn road, talking about Dolci and watching her and Pernod in their respective paddocks. (Allie's in the back; we couldn't see her.) Next thing we knew, Pernod was spooking in his paddock and puppy Travvy was underneath him, on his back, four paws in the air. Pernod bolted a couple of strides and kicked out. Oh SHIT. Ginny and I were up and running for the paddock gate. Trav rolled onto his feet and skedaddled for the fence a few feet away, screeching as he went. All four legs working -- if he can run and squawk like that, his neck and his back and his brain must be OK? I caught up with him at the gate to the empty paddock. Ginny caught up with me. I held wriggling, screeching puppy looking for bad signs -- blood, dents, limbs that bent in the wrong direction? Didn't see any. He wanted to keep skedaddling, into the barn and the safety of the grain room. He was limping a bit on his right hind leg but he was putting plenty of weight on it. I let myself believe that he was -- probably -- OK. Ginny wanted me to call the vet. By then I'd gone through Pernod's going to stomp my puppy to death through My puppy's dead and My puppy's seriously hurt to I think he's OK, I hope? Puppy reached the same conclusion at about the same time, which is to say he stopped screaming. Rhodry was an alpha wimp: to get the immediate acquiesence of other dogs, all he had to do was look at them, but if he stepped on a rock funny he'd limp for five minutes till he realized he hadn't done himself any permanent damage. Travvy seems to be headed in the same direction, on both counts. And I don't remember Rhodry ever being such a drama queen. After I lifted him into the truck, Travvy immediately started to scramble over the console into the back of the cab, where he likes to ride. I guessed that if he could do the necessary contortions to get where he wanted to go, he wasn't badly hurt. He did seem sensitive on the right side, and the area behind his ribs on that side seemed a little swollen, though it was hard to tell between the puppy belly and the fur. Back at home, I called the on-call emergency vet, described what had happened, said I thought the little guy was OK, but asked what the signs were that he might have internal damage. The gums should be pink, he said. If you press a spot, it should blanch, but the pink should return within two seconds. Check. Is he peeing and pooping? Check; check. Drinking excessively? No. Keep an eye on him for the next 48 hours. Check. The vet asked how much Trav weighs. Based on what he weighed a week and a half ago, I guessed about 25 pounds. Tell him to pick on someone his own size, the vet advised. Will do, said I, and explained that his adversary was the biggest horse in the barn, a 17:2-hand Hanoverian who probably weighs 1,300 pounds at least. (I just did the math: that's 52 times Travvy's weight.) I said I hoped he'd learned something from the experience. What kind of dog is he? asked the vet. Malamute, I said. In that case, said the vet, there's a good chance he has. If you'd said "golden retriever," though . . . I laughed. What soprano jokes are to musicians, golden retriever jokes are for dog people. By the time we returned to the barn in mid-afternoon, Travvy's limp had disappeared, though he sometimes squealed when I picked him up. Whether he hurt or was mainly afraid that he might be hurt, I wasn't sure. He was trotting away from the barn at one point when Pernod moved in his paddock. Travvy's trot accelerated and he looked over his left shoulder with, I swear, worry on his cute little face. He was still willing to follow Allie and me on a little trail ride, however. I take these for good signs: he's learned some caution, but he hasn't suddenly become afraid of horses. Whew. Something like this had to happen sometime, and all I could do was hope that he wouldn't be badly hurt when it did. One of Rhodry's littermates had her leg broken as a small puppy in a dust-up with a horse, and I've heard of a dog who had its back broken and had to be euthanized. Travvy seems to have survived his trial by hooves with no ill effects.
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