The luckiest dog in the world

Gabby is home from a day-long stay at the vet’s office, and here’s the verdict of her vehicular misadventure…

…basically, she’s going to be okay. As nasty as the inside of her rear legs and the back of her belly look, it’s road rash. Her right rear leg isn’t broken, just extremely sore; her left rear leg is very swollen and is actually more of a cause for concern, but it’s probably just from her supporting the entire weight of her back half on it on the long, slow trudge home.

Her sentence: antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds, and she needs to stay the hell away from the road.

I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Now that she’s caught a car, I think she’s done chasing them.

Astoundingly, the vet bill weighed in at under $200. I had been expecting an extra zero on the end of that.

She’s very lucky, and we’re very lucky. She’ll be back in business pretty soon. She’s done chasing cars, but we need her back on the case to chase Oberon every time he bolts out the door. She’s his insurance policy and his witless protection program all in one.

And she’s also our big goofy pup. I’m glad she’s okay.

I’m also pretty pissed. Sure, she shouldn’t have been near/in the road, but there’s a curve by our house that people have always taken way too fast. There are reflective arrow signs and a speed limit reduction leading up to it (especially on the downhill slope approaching our house from the hill on the south), which people completely ignore, which has already led to one major incident on our property in the eight years that we’ve lived here.

It could’ve been Little E out there. Or Oberon. Or any of the nice folks who use this road as a walking path simply because it isn’t heavily trafficked – and yet when there is traffic, it tends to take that curve far faster than the posted speed limit. I still worry that someone’s going to put a car through our front wall someday. For years, we’ve invited the county authorities to hang out at the top of our driveway to observe – they’re pretty much guaranteed of raising some revenue through the writing of traffic tickets. They’ve never taken us up on the invitation though.

There is an alternative, however. I’ve been pulling up carpet in my house recently. There are lots of now-unused tacking strips with little nails sticking up out of ’em. Just sayin’.