I’ve mentioned before that our oldest dog, Elly, is something of a terror. She’s escaped from fenced yards, run through the house with a knife in her mouth (blade-side out), and eaten enough random detritus that her accrued medical bills probably could have sent Caitlin and I on a rather enjoyable vacation.
For all of that, though, she is not alone in her recklessness.
Yesterday morning, after I had left for work, Caitlin took the dogs into the backyard where they saw a rabbit. A rabbit that has, in spite of the two chase-happy dogs living in our house, decided to live in our backyard. The hunt was on.
None of this should be that big a deal. Dogs chase rabbits. Rabbits are stupid enough to live where they get continually chased. Whatever. The situation, though, is more complicated than that.
You see, the western edge of our backyard is hemmed in by a massive amount of greenery: trees, vines, and untameable weeds have created an Impassable Wilderness along our back fence. Not only can you not walk into that area, you can barely see into it.
Included in that leafy disaster are some now-dead trees, stumps, and branches that tend to be rather dry and, where broken, sharp. You have to be a pretty small and agile thing – maybe a rabbit, for instance – to navigate through that tangle without scratching or impaling yourself. The dogs, for all their speed and power, are not so small or agile.
And that’s how Jersey ended up with a scratched cornea.
Fortunately the veterinarian said that she’ll be fine in time, although the process of holding her down and rubbing medicinal goo (that’s a technical term, obviously) into her eye every four hours is not a pleasant one.
Why, again, do I own dogs?
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