Accidents with Animals
I am a Survivor
Recently my friend Deborah Camp wrote an article about the high number of emergency room visits caused by pet-caused injuries. (https://medium.com/petness/pets-account-for-er-visits-in-surprisingly-big-numbers-f5226042c8c4 )That in turn inspired me to write about some of my own experiences with pet related injuries.
The earliest one I can recall was when I was 3. I was into crawling around on the floor with the assorted cats and dogs. I noticed the dogs had nice big bones and decided I too, should have one. In the ensuing bruhaha, I got one of the bones but also a black eye. My parents were NOT amused, neither were the dogs.
For the second incident, I was 10 and we were living in Portugal at the time and had a dog, cats, and some outdoor critters — hens, rabbits and a hedgehog.
The dog, Guarda, was my buddy and we played a lot. We were good friends.
However, one day, through a bad misunderstanding, he thought that I was planning on stealing his food. He lunged and grabbed my wrist and forearm and his teeth went right through. This accident was my own fault, I should not have been reaching toward his dish. My Mother gave me Hell. I bled all over the tiled kitchen floor and later got some stitches. I still have scars.
It was some years later, in the 1970s when my next animal notable related accident happened.
I had been gifted a horse. He was beautiful, but dumb as a plank.
One icy winters day I was out in the field trying to bring him in to the barn. I finally got the lead line attached to his halter and had a firm hold of it, when I slipped on a frozen lump of dirt in the field. I held on to the lead for dear life fearing that if I let go, I would never catch him again.
I had been told that horses will do anything to avoid walking on people. Morningstar had evidently not heard about this.
He happily trampled over me, walking on my head and face. I struggled up and dragged him to the barn, cursing.
When I walked into the barn, the other folks that boarded their horses there stared at me as if I was the devil incarnate. They asked if I was okay, I said yes.
We saddled up and went for a trail ride.When we got back an hour later, frozen from the icy wind, I put Morningstar in his stall, unsaddled and groomed him and then I went to catch the bus home. When I got on the bus, I got some really odd looks, which I put down to looking scruffy and smelling like a barn.
It was only when I finally got home and took a shower that I looked in the mirror and saw the horrible mess Morningstar had made of my face. At that point, having warmed up I also began to feel the effects of the damage. Amazingly — nothing was broken and the scrapes, bruises and cuts, while painful and horrible looking were not too serious. No wonder I had gotten all the looks from people, I looked like something out of a ripper movie.
The next animal related accident was about a year later and also with a horse. A very beautiful but very nervous one. We were out on a nice, peaceful trail ride and suddenly he spotted an old rusty tractor in an adjacent field. Thinking that it was about to attack him, he took off down a steep hill at a gallop, wouldn’t stop and I baled.
I landed full force on my right foot. Dislocated and broke my ankle. The nice orthopedic surgeon that rushed from dinner to the hospital to fix that mess, asked I had been parachuting. He told me the injury was exactly the injury sustained in failed parachute jumps. That injury put me in a cast for 8 weeks. Luckily it was a walking cast so I was still able to drive and thus, visit the horses. That injury still bothers me.
In the late 1990s I was out walking our dog, Moka, through a lovely bit of parkland.
I had one of those extendable leashes on him. We were playing with the frisbee. I threw it too far, Moka took off after it and my shoulder took the full force of his run and his grinding halt at the end of the leash. Broke the damned collar bone. Wow, that was the most awful pain. Still bugs me.
In 2008 I was out walking our neighbours big, strong Labrador retriever one icy morning.
He was really unmannerly on a leash. He spotted a dog he wanted to meet and rushed off, dragging me with him. I fell directly on my tail bone and got three spinal compression fractures.
In 2017 we adopted a Border Collie cross who turned out to have serious mental issues. Jasper (R.I.P.). We spent a year trying multiple methods to help him, to no avail.
One day, he cornered me and lunged after me snarling viciously. In trying to escape the bite I crashed down on my tailbone — again — and once again hurt my spine. It took a long time for that injury to get healed and my low back still bothers me a lot.
Since then, there have been no further pet related accidents, just gardening accidents, I am hoping this remains the case.
