Below is the account of Keough's unfortunate encounter. We sill miss him. The new pup Key is wonderful...very attentive and already responds to his name and some basic commands. We sense that he will respond well to training. He seems a bit slow on the bathroom training ...but that will come. Fatal Porcupine Encounter
On Friday August 24th we were entertaining company on our back deck and our (barely) one year old black Labrador, Keough had joined us and was getting acquainted with our guests. We live in the country and our house is surrounded on all sides by forest and streams. Wildlife is quite common around our house and we regularly observe animals nearby. It was late evening and dark when Keough decided to go down the steps of the deck. He was only out of sight for a few moments and returned whimpering; full of porcupine quills. Quills were embedded in his nose, chin, face, chest and abdomen. We immediately brought Keough into the house and began removing the quills using needle nose pliars. The dog was very cooperative at the start and seemed to sense that we were trying to help him. We removed at least 150 quills but as his initial shock wore off and the pain began to intensify, he became increasingly agitated and we decided to call emergency veterinary services. We were able to bring him in for treatment immediately. The vet sedated Keough and removed more quills. While sedated and he was carefully examined, it was determined that some quills had penetrated deeper into his chest area. Several quills were surgically removed from his chest. After approximately 2 hours at the Veterinary Clinic he was sewn up and we took him home.
Keough seemed to sleep okay that night and appeared to be himself the next morning. However, as the day wore on, he became less and less mobile, would stand motionless and would not eat. Saturday night was rough for Keough as he did not seem to be able to get comfortable by lying down, and consequently, he did not sleep. We attributed this to the tenderness of the surgical wound. Sunday was much the same; he would not eat and could not lie down. We did manage to get him to drink some water. He was very tired and was falling asleep on his feet. After lunch we decided to take him back into the vet. Chest x-rays were performed and if was determined that some quills had penetrated the lung wall and his lungs were filling with fluid. The vet consulted with a specialist in PEI, who recommended that Keough be put down as the likelihood of further surgery saving him was not good. The specialist indicated that Keough would likely not make it to PEI for the procedure. It was a very sad day to lose our great friend and companion at such a young age. We still miss him very much.
The following day we called Don at Doindogs to inform him of the unfortunate news and tell him what a great dog Keough was. As our luck should have it, we were able to obtain a new 8 week old black male pup the very same day. We named him “Key”.
We have learned from this experience and are beginning to control the porcupines on our property. Additionally, we will not be allowing the dog in the yard off-leash after dark given that porcupines seem to be more nocturnal as opposed to coming around during the day. Although the recall command would not have saved Keough as we did not see the encounter developing, perfecting recall may very well prevent similar encounters and we plan to diligently instill this command with our new pup.
Regards;
Denis
