The Incident

Picture this:
It's a quite Saturday night. We have spent the entire day working around the house, getting yardwork done, and just having a nice family day. Kirsten went to bed early, around 7:15, because she refused to take her afternoon nap. It was a wonderful chance for Scott & I to just chill out, watch some TV, and get to bed at a decent time.

That is, until we hear some extremely loud noises from the bathroom. It's a combination of barking, whining, and growling, and it's much more than Mia's usual freaking out at squirrels, etc. So we both got up and went into the bathroom to figure out what was going on. In the bathroom, we saw Mia but not Moxie, which was odd since they both had been in there previously. But the bathroom window had been open about 4-6". Now, it was open much wider and the screen was popped out of place. Scott ran outside, because it's never good when there's a dog missing. I followed shortly behind him with some treats, but they weren't needed.

Scott came walking towards me with Moxie, who was totally freaking out and had porcupine quills all over his face! We managed to get him inside, but he continued to freak out and whine - obviously in a lot of pain and confused about what had happened. I called the vet and they told us to bring him in, which I was already planning to do. Scott had attempted to remove a couple quills, but Moxie wouldn't stop moving long enough to even get to his face. He did, however, manage to take a couple photos before I left with Moxie.

The ride to the vet's office was not very pleasant. I had to listen to Moxie growl and whine at him self. And he tried (and succeeded) several times to get into my lap while I was driving - I had to pull over once to get him to move. It is very difficult to see a dog in pain but not be able to do anything. Once at the emergency vet's office, I had to wait for at least 1/2 hour before they did anything. THEN, the technician tried to take his pulse (didn't work) and THEN she tried to take his temperature - rectally. Yeah, not happening. The poor thing was in pain and then someone tried to shove something up his rear. I wouldn't want that either!!!

Thankfully, they were able to get him in, give him anesthesia and remove the quills pretty quickly. It was 10:30 by the time I got home, so my relaxing evening was toast. But I was glad to have Moxie back to "normal", even though he was pretty doped up still. Oh, the joys of having a dog!