Fortune and Misfortune

Two bloody spots on my dogs nose confirmed his misfortune and a pony’s good fortune.

This story is about the good fortune of a pony and the misfortune of a dog. I didn’t realize the pony’s luck at the time, so I only have a photo of the dog’s end of things.

I was doing my evening chores, including readying the foaling shed for a pregnant mare. I had finished that chore when I saw the mare appear nearby, walking toward me along the fence toward the foaling shed. I was thankful when she put herself in for the night without me fetching a halter and walking to find her and leading her in. I chuckled because her mother had been the same way.

A few minutes later my dogs and I began our trek to the barn to let the mare herd out. My young dog was frisky with the cooler temperatures and kept me laughing with his antics, including running circles around the foaling pen and doing sprints back and forth between my legs. As we headed back along the same path along the fence that the mare had just come in on, he grabbed a bone and trotted along in front of me. Then he dropped it to go investigate something. When he came back to fetch his bone in front of me on the path, he suddenly yelped and sprung four feet into the air and landed behind me. Then I heard a rattle. Two bloody dots on my dog’s nose confirmed he’d just been bitten by a rattlesnake.

Where I lived in Colorado for seventeen years we didn’t have snakes, let alone poisonous ones, so I’m still getting used to living with them here in South Dakota. My education about treating rattlesnake bites in dogs came fifteen months before when the same dog was bit on the face. This spring I had him vaccinated against rattlesnake venom, trusting he wouldn’t need the protection because he had learned from experience that he shouldn’t mess with them. His misfortune was that he had surprised the snake in deep grass and likely hadn’t even seen it while looking for his bone.

The pony’s good fortune was that the snake hadn’t bit her as she came along the same path a few minutes before. Maybe the snake had just arrived there, or maybe the snake felt her coming from the clomp-clomp of her hooves. Whatever the reason, I was extremely grateful for how things turned out, especially since the mare foaled four hours later. I knew the ropes for getting my dog on the road to recovery and didn’t have to learn the routine for an equine. Or for a human for that matter since I was right there, too. After anti-venom and other supporting medications, two days later my dog is acting normally and has just a little remaining swelling.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021