A stick and a rabbit, an unusual start to season

A new season begins with a difference 

After what has felt like an eternity waiting for the evenings to start drawing in earlier and the temperature to start ebbing, I finally deemed it a reasonable evening to take my collie x grey x whippet lurcher for a wander around the neighbours field with the intention of running her down the beam should the opportunity present itself.

I usually take both my girls (Gummo and Dharma) together on the first suitable evening of autumn so that they get reacquainted with running down the beam of the lamp and walking off lead by my side in the gloom of the night. However, this season has started with a difference due to Dharma (collie x grey x deerhound) suffering a life threatening injury a few weeks ago. As I have found myself on the subject of the injury I will recount what happened to serve as both an interesting, although slightly gruesome story, and an eye opening account to other dog owners (especially those who own fast paced hound types).

Dharma Vs the stick

My wife and I are fortunate to have a house that backs onto woodland, so naturally our dogs are walked on a pretty much daily basis along familiar trails in these woods. The dogs are familiar with the woodland so I am comfortable for them to be off their leads and out of sight doing their own thing (both have excellent recall and are steady around horses).

A few weeks ago whilst the weather was still pleasant and the ground firm and dry underfoot I decided to take a stroll off one of the regular paths, we are lucky enough to live along the Stour Valley (named so because the river Stour meanders its way through it on its course to sea at Sandwich bay) so by nature the terrain around us is on the hilly side. We had walked about half a mile from the trodden path when the girls started to do that synchronised circular running at greater speed and increasing radius that any lurcher owner will be familiar with, they were on the fourth such lap when shortly after disappearing from sight due to the grade of the ground there came a loud snapping sound followed by a cry from Dharma. Naturally I quickly covered the distance to the source of the yelp.

At first glance from 100 yards or so away I thought that nothing serious had occurred as Gummo had sauntered off to sniff around the bottom of a nearby bush and Dharma was just standing there looking at me albeit a little out of breath. It was not until I was next to her that I first saw the stick protruding from her side. After lightly touching the end of the stick it was apparent that it was in quite a way. I took a photo and sent it to my wife and explained that I would be carrying one of the dogs out of the wood and she needed to make the vet aware we would be coming in. Thankfully Amy managed to contact a neighbour who dropped everything and headed for the woods on a tractor to assist.

Thanks to the help of our neighbour Dharma was seen by the vet within an hour of the impalement. After a scan and an X ray it was concluded that the stick had pierced all the way through a chamber of her lung. As any dog owner who has ever had serious injury inflicted on a dog knows, this very quickly becomes a stressful situation involving possible life or death decisions for your canine companion. Our vet concluded that the best place for her to go would be to the specialist in Essex, well over an hours drive from us, with the chances of Dharma making the journey calculated at less than 40%. We found ourselves in a limbo state and were convinced we would be making that awful decision that no animal owner wants to make.

We contacted the vet at the next agreed time and before those horrid words were uttered we were informed that a local vet from another practice had viewed the images and was willing to give the procedure to remove the stick and seal the lung a go.

The road to recovery

Four weeks later Dharma is doing well and making a good recovery. Her near death experience saw her win our vets 'patient of the month' award. This story explains why I am starting the '23 lamping season with one dog. I am hoping that Dharma will be able to join Gummo down the beam in the new year but small steps and little goals. 

The season ahead 

Although this season has not exactly got off to the start I was hoping for at least both dogs are alive. Gummo is most likely looking forward to working alone and spending time in the field with me. I took her out for the first short walk around a neighbours field last night as the wind and rain was too much of a pull to my lamping nature to resist. After ten minutes of stealthily moving along the hedgerow the opportunity for the first run of the season presented itself.

Gummo not having run down the beam since February was a little bit gung-ho and firstly ran straight over the top of the rabbit giving it the opportunity to get into the hedgerow, the ensuing hedge dance felt like it took ten minutes (heart in throat given the recent stick incident) for the dog to push the rabbit back out into the field where she made a clean pick up. After walking another half a mile and coming across a pair of badgers tucking into something I called it a night as their presence explained why although conditions were still perfect I hadn't laid eyes on another rabbit although I know their numbers are high on this particular permission. As always the first rabbit of the season makes a new season welcome meal for the dogs.

Going forward into the season

Now that we are transitioning into autumn and the weather starts to get more 'working lurcher friendly' I have high hopes for this season, Gummo is in very good shape and this being her fourth proper season she is showing much potential for a strong performance both in daylight and down the beam. I shall write another piece once we are into the swing of it to update on how it's panning out and how Dharma's recovery is going.

Thanks for reading,

Skott