Doggie tale

Meg's kind of camera shy, so it's hard for me to take a decent photo of her and I together. It doesn't change the fact that we've become pretty good buddies over the last couple of years. The two-year anniversary of her arrival was on Tuesday. To mark the anniversary, I rescued her from a tree. Yep, Meg, our intelligent little border collie, managed to get herself stuck in a tree.

We had just started out on our daily walk, me on the trail and Meg running everywhere, when I heard a horrible, pained yelping and coming from the trees. My first thought was that she had encountered a porcupine, but when she didn't come running to me (as I was running toward that awful sound) I worried she may have got into a coyote trap. Occasionally, we hear about traps being set and dogs getting into them, but the theory wasn't really computing in my little racing brain as there are no livestock near our property. When I found Meg, she was standing on her hind legs with her left front leg wedged between the two trunks of a large red oak. She was a little twisted as she had tried to free herself. I ran over and picked her up to relieve the weight on her leg and shoulder and tried to release her. Nothing moved. I was nervous that her leg was broken and shoulder dislocated, so I was a little ginger at first, but even with more effort on my part her leg didn't budge. Meg had calmed right down and was letting me fix the situation, but I was starting to get a bit worried that I didn't have a good solution. I was holding her up and I didn't want to set her down as I didn't want to put more stress on her shoulder, and I certainly didn't want to leave her there while I went for help, but I was feeling a bit out of options. I took a little while to catch my breath and figure out what to do then tried freeing her once more. It worked! I guess the trunk of the tree moved in the wind just slightly, and her leg just popped out.

I checked her leg and shoulder and set her down, and she took off running as though nothing had happened. I thought at least she'd be a bit sore, but if she was, she didn't let on. She didn't explain how she had arrived in her predicament, but I'd wager there was a squirrel involved. There's probably a lesson here, but sometimes things just happen. I am very happy I could help.