A scorpion’s tale is no joke – Day 53 of 365

In my last blog, I gave you a glimpse into my day-to-day life while settling into this living off the land sustainable lifestyle. I’m not going to bore you with self-congratulatory messages for sticking to my to do list, nor will I regale you with corporate stories from last week, because these last 20 hours have been most instructive for a wannabe rural farmer.

There is “Dramatic”, which I can do at the drop of a hat, for entertainment’s sake, and then there is “Traumatic”. Now, while my crises response mode is not “cool as a cucumber”, it is in fact, “cucumber ice-cream”, not being able to solve the problem is what brought me here to your counselling couch.

By now you may have picked up from my social media pages, that guard dog has been cloned, and now I have two.

When you visit you will understand the extent of the cloning allegation.

The original guard dog, by name of Weetbix, started acting weirdly last night during the humans’ dinner. The canine dinner had been served already, and Weetbix and Oxo had been jolling in the veld outside.

She came in limping. I inspected her paw for the inevitable duwweltjie (loosely translated as little devil, and a particularly innocuous little %$^ thorn) but found none. She was not overly complaining, but it was clear something was bugging her, and she kept gnawing at her hind paw. A few minutes later, she started shaking her head vigorously, and a few minutes more, she started gagging, with no “output”.  Thank goodness no output, because we were in the guest cabin, and I would have had to clean it up. Gagging myself nearly.

I put her outside (you reckon I was put outside as a child “to get over it”? ) and when I went to check up on her, she ran away. Very odd behaviour indeed.

Eventually we had her under the bright kitchen light, inspecting as best we could: her foot, her mouth, her cheeks, her ears, her throat, her tummy; all of which she dutifully allowed.

She continued that behaviour for more than an hour, and it was time to revert to Dr Google. Yep, you guessed correctly, the most likely diagnose was scorpion sting. The rabbit hole that is Google just caused more concern and confusion with poisonous or not, and its not like I was going back into the veld in the dark of the night looking for “the One with the missing stinger”.

Here I test your mettle: Do you jump in the car and travel to the nearest vet? Yes, or no?

And if the nearest vet is 200km in the dark on gravel roads on which you will most likely come across massive kudus? Yes, or no?

Having made her as comfortable as I could and having made peace with the probable indoor toilet drama, we waited out the night. Not pleasant. Not when she loudly yelps every half hour or so. Which I think was caused by her brother bumping against her hind quarters during the night.

I was very relieved when the very friendly vet in the nearest town, Dr Gaugler, answered my midnight question at 7am. Given the symptoms described and displayed in one of the middle of the night scenes, he also guessed scorpion, but he did not comment on my question whether I could administer a quarter tablet of disprin. It’s just as well he didn’t, because she was not interested in drinking anything, and how was I going to administer it? (Suppository apparently…. Not sure about that one!)

By this time, she was weak in the legs, and could not stand when I took her outside to relieve herself. Decision made, I jumped in the car, and drove (as a sensible speed given the gravel road and my experience in rolling a car) the 1,5 hours to the nearest town.

By this time, she was exhibiting signs of her friendly self, and allowed me and the vet to poke and prod her. I knew she was going the be OK when she excitedly thought the injection the vet was unwrapping, was a doggie treat. And by the time we got home, she was her old self.

Conclusion:

• Maybe she would have survived the incident without a 320km round trip visit to the vet.
• I have used disprin for goat kid injuries before, and will do it with dogs in need, but you make your own choice there.
• Dogs’ pain manifests in a myriad of ways.
• Dr Gaugler understands pets under stress; and humans under stress.
• Farming is not for the faint hearted.

Good night, everyone!