i hate nutria

this weekend my dog got attacked by a nutria. i should probably blame the dog, because he was the one who escaped from the house in the first place (i was in the shower and he somehow pushed open the sliding glass door), and then was enough of a dumbass to try to make friends with the thing. the house was unusually quiet when i got out of the shower, so i called for otis. nothing. i whistled and called for him again, and i heard his collar jingle from somewhere outside. i wrapped my towel around me and went out the back door just in time to see otis dive under the deck after a nutria. i heard a scuffle. i called a third time, this time probably sounding a little angry but mostly afraid. he popped out from under the deck with the nutria attached to his face. there was another scuffle as otis shook the nutria off and it ran away. he trotted into the house--smiling and panting and wagging his tail like he was going to doggie disneyland--with BLOOD dripping from his mouth.

panicked, i rinsed his mouth off and then called matt (who hasn't had a day off in two weeks!), my vet, and the emergency vet, in that order. matt and my vet both threw me even farther into a panic: matt talking about the hundreds of dollars this was going to cost and both of them talking about the fact that now otis probably has rabies and god-knows what other kinds of disgusting rodent disease. the emergency vet was much more calming. she told me to make sure none of the blood was his (check him for open wounds), and bring him in if it was. she said since he's had his shots he should be protected from disease and he will probably only need antibiotics...stitches at the very most.

i checked otis over and found a scratch on his chest and a pretty decent-sized laceration in his floppy doggie gums, so i drove his butt to "spring-tucky" (aka springfield, where the emergency vet hospital is located). it seemed everyone else's dogs decided to be dumbasses that day, too--the lobby was overflowing. one little dog had tried to get a drink of water from a sprinkler and got blasted in the eye! the incident with the nutria and the subsequent blood-spewing wounds had absolutely no effect on otis' general otis-y-ness, so of course he was bouncing all over the lobby trying to get in everyone's laps and make friends with everyone's dogs. fortunately i had purchased the gentle leader head collar, which is a miracle working device that allowed me to keep otis out of everyone's business with pretty much no effort other than having to explain to people a) why he was jumping in circles like a freak and pawing at his mouth and b) that it's not a muzzle, it's just a head collar, and no, otis is not dangerous.

three hours later, otis got to go back in to see the doctor. poor guy had to have a thermometer shoved into his rear end for the second time that week (he had all his shots updated on monday, and any trip to the vet somehow seems to have to include a temperature reading). but he was a good doggie and let the vet look in his mouth and all, and she concluded (thank goodness) that since he's a puppy and the major wound is in his mouth, it should heal on its own and all he needs are antibiotics. it still obviously cost money to bring him in and fill the prescription, but anesthesia and stitches would have been a lot worse! so now he's home, taking cephalexin twice daily disguised as cubes of cheese, and constantly trying to get out of the house to finish what he started with the damn nutria.