Wild Animals

Part I

A 13 year old boy was coming to Houston with his parents to escape the hurricane. His fishing rod was in the back of the SUV, as was his dog. The dog tried to eat the fishing lure on the end of the rod, and a hook got stuck in his mouth. In the panic that ensued, the boy tried to help the dog and a treble hook on the same lure got stuck in his thumb. Now the kid and the fishing rod were attached to the frightened thrashing dog. Bummer.

The parents cut the hook somehow, took the dog to the vet and the kid to the ER. What an expensive day for them, on top of the stress from the hurricane and the long drive.


Part II

A 76 year old man who lives on a ranch out of town was awakened by a noise in his kitchen. He went to investigate and found a raccoon on top of his microwave. I asked him, "So what did you do?"

He said in a beautiful Texas drawl, "Well, I went over and tried to choke it to death." His hands and arms looked like they had been shoved in and out of a thorny rosebush 20 times, and he had a deep cut over his eyelid. He fell down during the battle and cut his eyelid. He asked me what I would have done in his situation. I answered, "Well I can tell you what I would NOT have done. Why didn't you get a bat or something?" He didn't have one, he said. "I guess he got the better of me." That thing must have been like a screeching, chattering buzzsaw, shredding that poor old man up. He was still able to throw it out the door.

Part of me admires him for being a tough old Texan, but yowch!

There are only three animals whose bites always require rabies shots in the US: bats, skunks, and raccoons. The shots have to be given into the wound, when possible, and repeated every few days. I saw him a few months later for something else, and he was doing great.