Whoo boy. What a month (for family and friends)!
A friend called to tell me there's a dog on the front page of today's Sun that looks exactly like Hawkeye. It and another shepherd (paper says Belgium - should be Belgian) had been rescued from an abusive environment in Durham and were up for adoption. I've been fighting the urge to get another dog so I called my friend Susi, who breeds Belgian Tervurens, to find out if she knows anything about these dogs. As it turns out they're german shepherds. She talked me out of rescuing the pair (didn't take much considering the care and attention required in cases of abuse) but she also had a horrifying dog tale to share about one of her Tervs.

Her daughter had to go up to Thunder Bay for school last weekend so it was a good excuse for a road trip. She packed up daughter, three dogs, van and headed out. They stopped frequently to let the dogs out and camped at night.


After dropping Sabrina off she pretty much turned around and came home again. Somewhere around Sturgeon Falls she stopped to let the dogs have a stretch on a sideroad. It seemed an ideal spot - no traffic and a stream. Now, these are highly trained, certified obedience dogs that were born and raised in the country. They stick close to Susi and react instantly to commands. I have to say that so you know that neither she nor the dogs are lightweight city-dwellers with no "bush sense". Everything was great when she suddenly heard a loud SNAP followed by the most horrific screaming she could imagine. The only dog she couldn't see was her male, Dite. As she scrambled to get to the source of the screaming her brain tried to process what could have happened. She wondered if he'd run into a deer and the snapping sound was him breaking one of it's legs. What she found was her dog with his neck in a beaver trap, just behind the ears.

She slogged through hip-deep swamp to get to him and struggled unsuccessfully to open the trap. She picked him up and was carrying him back across the swamp and up to the van when she realized the two females were still loose. She got them into the van and was then able to flag down a car. The man followed Susi back to the dog while his wife called the police. Even with the man's help, they weren't able to release the trap.
Fortunately two OPP offices arrived and between them were able to release the dog from the trap. Dite's collar fell to the ground as it opened and they realized that the plastic clips on the collar were what saved him from any real damage.
I'm pretty impressed that the cops felt it was important enough to give her a high speed escort to the local vet who checked Dite out and, except for an exceptionally low heart rate, found him to be in perfect condition. The low heart rate was a concern as it could indicate damage to a something-something nerve in the neck but she thought it more likely to be his natural reaction to stress. Dite fully recovered from the whole ordeal (not so sure about Susi!)

Meanwhile on the home front, my beautiful niece Tara (centre) fainted a couple of weeks ago, bouncing her chin off a cement floor and fracturing her jaw in three places, breaking two teeth, knocking out another and breaking a bone in her mandible which punctured her ear canal. After some stitches and a few days in the hospital she was released and the family headed to the cottage. Instead of the usual sailing, tubing and wakeboarding, Tara is confined to summer school getting a jump on her math courses for next year.


But that's not the end of it. Yesterday, they were driving in Muskoka when a woman ran a red light and piled into the passenger door. Poor Tara was in the passenger seat and all she saw was this giant SUV coming straight at her! (turns out the lady in the other vehicle lives around the corner from them in the city). I texted Tara that we should wrap her in bubble wrap until the summer's over. Her response was pretty cheerful so, all things considered she's in pretty good spirits. Phew.