An awful, stinky, sucky evening!

indianasmith · January 05, 2011, 11:25:38 PM

The day at work was pleasant enough - I enjoy teaching, and the kids were pretty good today. One of my daughters was home sick, the other was with me as we stopped to get some goat food before heading home. We got in and the bad stuff started.

As I'm lugging the 50 pound feed sacks down to the barn, I saw that the two kids that were born to one of our nannies yesterday were both down - one dead, the other dying. Their mom had a nice full bag and was letting them nurse, but her milk had not yet dropped and the poor things had starved in their first 24 hours of life! I took the one that was still alive to the house and we spent half the evening trying to save it, but it died around 7 PM.

Not a half hour later, I get a call from our vet. The field dogs had killed a skunk Saturday, and one of them got nipped on the nose. He was a young Pyrennes/Anatolian mix we got this summer, and as it turned out, he had never gotten his rabies shot (he was 5 months when we got him, 1 month too young for that vaccination). We quarantined the dog and our vet shipped the skunk off to Austin - and sure enough, he was rabid. We are going to have to put the dog down.

My girls don't know how to love anything a little bit. Becca in particular, who lives with constant, crippling headaches, was devastated. I hate losing animals, but far worse, I hate seeing my girls with broken hearts. What a miserable evening!

retrorussell · January 06, 2011, 12:28:37 AM

Sorry to hear that, Indy. Things will get better. Losing an animal that's close to you sucks hard. My condolences.

Trevor · January 06, 2011, 06:06:38 AM

Sorry about that, Indy.

Jack · January 06, 2011, 07:12:09 AM

Oh man, that's terrible. You have my sincerest sympathies Indy.

indianasmith · January 06, 2011, 07:17:17 AM

Thanks guys! Next day is a little easier . . . if we don't think about it too much.

Trevor · January 06, 2011, 07:30:45 AM

Quote from: indianasmith on January 06, 2011, 07:17:17 AM
Thanks guys! Next day is a little easier . . . if we don't think about it too much.

I hope that today will be better for you.

ulthar · January 06, 2011, 07:36:44 AM

Losing an animal is indeed tough, and seeing your children try to cope with that loss without much of life's context is even harder.

The silver lining is the wonderful (as in spiritually challenging!) lesson for your daughters. Seeing the way YOU handle this will help them long term. Yes, it's hard (on all) of you NOW...but that's the point. Learning to cope with loss and challenges in life is no small matter.

And I have no doubt you are already doing this, I just wanted to put it out there.

Blessings and Peace,

JR

Umaril The Unfeathered · January 06, 2011, 09:54:24 AM

Quote from: retrorussell on January 06, 2011, 12:28:37 AM
Sorry to hear that, Indy. Things will get better. Losing an animal that's close to you sucks hard. My condolences.

Quote from: retrorussell on January 06, 2011, 12:28:37 AMLosing an animal that's close to you sucks hard.

My Yellow Lab had to be put down in 1998 at the ripe old age of 14. It was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do; but not as hard as personally saying goodbye to a pet before his euthanization..

No matter how many times I hugged him and no matter how many times I kept seeing this happy little puppy that went with me whereever I went, the reality of the sick broken down animal before me hit me like a brick. It's taken me about a half hour to write this; it's hard to type through tears, so I'll stop now.

Indy, you have my sympathies as well. It will pass, but it's gonna' hurt like hell. I hope things will get better for you.

AndyC · January 06, 2011, 10:31:23 AM

That's the tough thing. I put down my old dog last summer, and it was sad, but it was also something I'd been anticipating for a while. Losing two brand-new baby animals must be especially hard, especially when it was something that might have been prevented if anyone had known. That's got to be frustrating. And losing a young dog on top of that. Just awful.

Cthulhu · January 06, 2011, 10:46:23 AM

I'm sorry about your animals, and kids.
It must hurt to lose one of your dogs.

Umaril The Unfeathered · January 06, 2011, 11:02:52 AM

Quote from: AndyC on January 06, 2011, 10:31:23 AM
That's the tough thing. I put down my old dog last summer, and it was sad, but it was also something I'd been anticipating for a while. Losing two brand-new baby animals must be especially hard, especially when it was something that might have been prevented if anyone had known. That's got to be frustrating. And losing a young dog on top of that. Just awful.

I'd agree. Losing baby animals is a hard thing, knowing the uphill battle all infants have to survive. Watching something fight as hard as possible and then lose the battle is emotionally painful.

However, it's a given that survival rates among baby animals are initially low, and we know it might happen to begin with. The playing field is levelled for all newborns in the animal kingdom in this way, but it's still of little consolation when and if a death (or deaths) occur.

Be that as is, it also hurts like hell when you've had a pet for 10, 12 years and suddenly there's nothing but an empty food dish or an empty cage to stare at.

For that time period they were alive, they were part of your life, and you saw them when you left the house and when you came home later. It also marks a timeline in your life too. Be it young or old, losing a pet is an equally hurtful experience

Flick James · January 06, 2011, 11:25:36 AM

An awful, stinky, sucky evening pretty much says it all.

Yes, I agree, how you deal with it will help you children get through and also teach them valuable life lessons.

Trevor · January 06, 2011, 02:28:24 PM

This reminds me of the day some colleagues and I went back to our holdings building to find that one of our almost tame rock hyraxes had died and the other had fled. That was nearly a year ago and I still am not over that. I miss those little buggers terribly.

indianasmith · January 06, 2011, 11:18:34 PM

We got some great news today - the health dept. no longer requires dogs to be put down if they've been exposed to rabies! They do a regimen of three shots - one within a week of exposure, one three weeks later, and then one five weeks after that. We'll have to keep Vicious (that's the dog's name, a misnomer if I ever heard one!) quarantined for 90 days, but we get to keep him!!

You should have seen my girls' faces light up when I told them!!!

Life is good tonight.

BTM · January 07, 2011, 12:38:40 AM

Quote from: indianasmith on January 06, 2011, 11:18:34 PM
We got some great news today - the health dept. no longer requires dogs to be put down if they've been exposed to rabies! They do a regimen of three shots - one within a week of exposure, one three weeks later, and then one five weeks after that. We'll have to keep Vicious (that's the dog's name, a misnomer if I ever heard one!) quarantined for 90 days, but we get to keep him!!

You should have seen my girls' faces light up when I told them!!!

Life is good tonight.

Shoot, I hate to be a downer, but is there still a chance he got rabies from the bite?

Well, I hope everything works out okay!