I had to go to Denver for non-dog-related business last week and while I was gone, near tragedy struck... We were dogsitting another RR (Carmella) for friends of ours while they went to their son's wedding in TN and our "smart" RR enabled three of them to escape our fenced area early on Sunday morning after they were let out at 6 a.m.
Carmella got hit by a car at the end of our 800' driveway, with Pearl and Sissy looking on. She was able to stagger with them back thru the gate and into the house when Gerry realized something had happened and rushed her to the emergency vet.
She had severe head trauma with a fractured jaw and lacerated tongue and it was touch and go as to whether anything else had been fractured or whether her brain was traumatized enough to begin swelling. Our friends' daughter is an EVT at the vet school in Cary and she took her up there early Monday morning for testing. Remarkably, she didn't suffer any neurological damage. They will have to watch a large hematoma on her neck/back in the vicinity of a vertabral chip, which seems to be pinching a nerve to her front leg and causing some wobbling, but otherwise, she is now doing well and on the road to recovery.
Oddly enough, one of our rescue fosters, Shaka, taught the others how to open our latch doors and chain link gate latch late last year. Our neighbor forgot to put the pin back in its slot when he re-latched it the day before and Pearl must have been bored or wanting to chase the guinea hens next door when Ger let her out.
We are so thankful it's not any worse than it is... Nothing worse than being trusted with the care of someone else's dog when something bad happens on your watch...
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