Thanks to Tammy St. Louis and Erika Ackerland for providing additional video and pictures.

The dog punctured her hand and wrist badly enough to warrant stitches and even though the hospital shouldn’t stitch a dog bite, in case they sew in some bacteria, Jenn got two stitches on one arm and three on the other. Still shaken and shaking after seeing the doctor, Jenn was a long time getting over the incident and yet here she is, today, standing fifty feet away from a barking, wild-eyed Belgian Malinois that is twitching with excitement as it stares at the bite suit Jenn is wearing. The dog is released and it streaks across the floor, leaving its feet to lunge at Jenn and lock onto her shoulder. Everybody claps. Jenn is being shaken by the dog as she moves around the floor and then, the shriek of a whistle is heard and the dog immediately lets go of Jenn and returns to its handler. Jenn moves to the center of the room to await another dog and another attack. This is not a therapy group. This is French Ringsport and I wonder if my wife hasn’t gone crazy.

Jenn takes a bite to the shoulder…which is awfully close to her unprotected neck.

French Ringsport is an intense activity for dogs and there are many competitions around the world. The sport involves a variety of disciplines like jumps, obedience and protection. It shares elements of service dog training and was developed as a way of testing potential breeding stock for working ability. Some of the events in Ringsport require a great deal of obedience and control, such as the Food Refusal segment where the dog is required to to not only refuse morsels of food thrown its way but to spit out food that may find its way into the dog’s mouth by well of a well-aimed throw. Our sled dogs would never pass this. This event is done with the handler out of sight of the dog, so there is every opportunity for the dog to think it might, just this once, cheat and get away with it. There are also retrieval events, sit/stay events and, of course, the attention-grabbing attack and defend events.

Saul, one of the trainers, watches his dog

I watch as again, Jenn waddles to her place in the middle of the room. “The bite suit is very heavy.” Jenn confides. My parents sit, almost horrified, off to the side and I can see they are not sure about this sport. They came to see Dario do some sort of training, not this. They are up visiting us for the weekend and despite my and Jenn’s sometimes quirky activities, this demonstration is a whole new level of unusual. To them, and perhaps to others, this looks like these dogs are being trained for personal protection; to be attack dogs for all the drug dealers and Mob enforcers in the room. None of this is true, of course, and Jenn tries to ease their minds by telling them that any dog that might participate in Ringsport is given a very thorough temperament test: the Certificat de Sociabilite et d’Aptitude a l’Utilisation (Certificate of Sociability and Aptitude for Work). Any hint of aggression, fear or dominance and that dog is not cleared for the sport. Also, Jenn is quick to point out, the decoy (person in the suit) that the dog bites is more often than not the person with whom it spends the majority its time outside of training. “The dog’s best friend,” she assures my parents.

And then, amid a honking horn and encouraging shouts of “AttaqueAttaqueAttaque!” Canada’s second-ranked Ringsport dog runs down Jenn and grabs hold of the bite suit which it then shakes, determined to not let go until the whistle sounds.

Part of Jenn’s job as decoy – especially in the early stages of training – is to help the dog “place” the bite. In her one hand, Jenn holds a split bamboo stick. She holds the stick just high enough the dog has no choice but to bite at her knee. She also has to quickly move the leg she intends the dog to bite so that the dog sees it and focuses on it. At the same time, however, she has to plant that leg and be ready to move the other one back and behind the leg to be bitten so that her knee is exposed for the dog. As the dog comes in for the bite, the decoy has to absorb some of the force of the dog coming into contact with the leg or risk injury to the dog’s neck or mouth. All of this is done in a matter of moments and it is hard to watch it all happen and not think of dancing. Once the dog has a secure bite, the decoy alternates between shaking the split bamboo stick and stroking the dog’s face, head and shoulders, while praising it and offering encouragement. The bamboo stick is to introduce noise and commotion because in later stages, the competing dog will have to work around the sound of a gun, crowds and other distractions. Through all of this, there is a bicycle horn honking. It turns out that the horn is used in competitions to signal to the handler, decoy and judges that the event is over. The dog is not allowed to release its grip on the suit until the sound of a whistle but, smart as they are, the dogs soon figure out what the horn means and if not desensitized to the sound, they may lose points by releasing too early. The horn that they are using this weekend is your standard, run-of-the-mill bike horn, the kind circus clowns are forever honking. It adds a certain surreal air to the display: here is a dog ferociously biting the leg of my wife while in the background, a clown is making bad jokes and balloon animals.

My parents and I stay for a few more demonstrations. We ask if Dario will be coming out but, since they are using the bite suit at the moment, he won’t. Although he passed the temperament test, it turns out Dario is probably not a dog for Ringsport. He lacks the necessary drive to bite which seems odd since here is a dog that was about to be euthanized because he was said to be prone to biting. The one sport where this would be an asset, and he lacks the drive to bite. Go figure.

…but he loves to play. Dario grabs for a tug toy.

I am working on a video of the weekend. I’ll post it when it’s done.

The Puppies:

Have you ever had that feeling where you are certain of something? Extremely certain? Can’t fail certain? So certain that you don’t want to actually go through with whatever you are certain about for fear of being wrong? Horribly wrong? Me too.

We have this litter of puppies – almost fourteen months old now – whose lineage reads like a who’s who of winning sled dogs. Just by their appearance you can tell these are going to be some pretty special dogs. Of this I am certain.

Action

Blink

Streak

Chase

Jenn and I talked at the beginning of the training season and we decided that we would hold off training these puppies for another year. We’d run them with the older dogs, just to get them out and understanding what sledding is all about but, as for serious training, we decided that we’d hold off a year. Even though we both knew the temptation to run them with the racing dogs would be great. And for a long time, we were good about it. The racing dogs went out and the puppies stayed behind. The old dogs went out and the puppies went along and it was clear that the puppies were already on board with what sledding was all about. So it wasn’t really a surprise when Jenn came to me one day and said: “I’ve been thinking…”

“I’ve been thinking,” she started “that we should maybe run the puppies with the main team this year because they will be two next year and that is too late to start training them for racing.”

Despite our agreement, despite my wanting to hold firm to what we knew was going to be a difficult choice and despite my wanting to hold off running the dogs so as to preserve their perfect image for as long as possible, I agreed.

For the next two runs, we backed off the miles because the puppies had less training than the main team, but when we’d arrive back at the truck after these shortened runs, the puppies would look like they never went out, even though I watched them pull like crazy for the entire run. Nothing seems to phase them: we’ve passed cars, people, other dogs and a wolf; we’ve run during the day, during the night, fast and slow and all with no problems whatsoever.

Back at the truck from a run.  The puppies are closer to the back, but it’s nice to see the whole team sometimes, too.

I guess that is enough raving about the puppies. I am just pretty shocked that they were able to catch on so quickly. It really took no time at all. And, who knows? Maybe we willrace them this year – but of that I’m not certain.

I had intended for the video to show darkness slowly give way to light and out of the darkness a dog team would emerge, into the light, only to be swallowed up by the darkness again, as they fade off into the distance.  I thought it would be somehow metaphorical.  A brief glimpse of magic – or something.  Instead, it looks more like archival footage of a Bigfoot sighting.

A new section of trail that we found last weekend.  With this, we now have a solid 40-mile trail.

After our winter season of mushing is done, the races are over, the training is over and there is no longer enough snow to have fun runs and camping trips, we hang up the harnesses for another year. A week or so goes by in which the we and the dogs relax, no longer bound by schedules and enjoying the time off as Spring makes its way through the melting snow and dying winter winds. But it is a short lived span, for in no time we are back assessing our winter: could our training have been better? What were our race results like? Who were the best dogs? Who were the slack-liners? Where and what can we improve for next year? And it’s here – on our aspirations and expectations for the coming year – that we hang, for six and a half to seven months of the year; waiting for the cooler weather, eagerly anticipating our revamped training schedule or a new dog or two.

Walks and free runs during the summer alleviates some of the pent up urge to run, both in the dogs and us, but it’s not the same. We all want to be part of that team – the one whose dogs still look fresh after forty miles of running; who are not at all finished running by race end. But more importantly, we all want to be out with our dogs, watching them do what they love to do. And this is why we have had to start training at night.

Now I’ll be honest here: I am not a huge fan of running at night. Bad things happen in the dark. I’m not talking about the things that go ‘bump’ in the dark, either. I’m talking about dogs getting loose and disappearing (despite it never happening during the daylight hours); animal encounters, tangles that you don’t see (despite an awesome headlamp and the two headlights on the training rig, so how can that happen? Well, it can’t) and so on. By the time it comes to load the dogs up and drive off into the darkness though, I have psyched myself out to the point of dreading the run. But I go because I have to. We have a responsibility to the dogs and, provided it’s cool enough, there really is no excuse for not going; hundreds of dreaded instances running through your head or not.

So far, I have trained more at night than during the day. It is getting easier in some ways and in others, not so much. I still dread the animal encounters. Two runs ago, on a foggy night, I was on the way to the trail with the dogs in their boxes and we rounded a particularly sharp corner. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of something white which at first looked like a reflection on my window but then, almost instantly, transformed into the figure of man, at least six and a half feet tall, clothed in a white hoodie and sort of floating, in a bobbing sort of way, along the foggy road. Ghostly, almost. For a moment I thought “What the hell is someone doing out here at this time of night, walking along the road?” But as I looked harder, the outline of a moose began to take shape. I had been staring at it’s hind end, thinking it was a tall man, floating along the road. Of course it was a moose. That made so much more sense, but my mind had jumped to the less likely ghost-like figure right away. And this isn’t the first time it’s mistaken a very obvious moose for something else. Last year on a run, we topped a hill to the surprise of a pair of antlerless moose on the side of the trail. “Where’d these horses come from?” I wondered. But then, “Oh, right. Moose.”

Roughly ten o’clock at night and our world is all you can see.  I know it’s fuzzy, but you get the idea.

We passed by the moose in the fog, the dogs catching its scent and suddenly sounding like they were going to come through the doors of their boxes to give chase. By the time I got to the trailhead, they had all but forgotten about the moose. Their excitement turned to the run ahead. Unlike me, the dogs love to run in the dark. I hooked them all up without incident and we took off. It was a ‘slow training day’ so we stayed below eight miles per hour and with my MP3 player in my ears and the complete darkness around us, it was easy to just live in the pool of light that the training rig cast: our little bubble, moving through the velvety darkness. Almost halfway into the run every dog’s head snapped to the left at once and all ears went up. “Oh, no” I thought, but the dogs trotted ahead still, kind of like that old military footage of a corps of soldiers marching past their leaders all saluting and looking at the podium as they go. A quarter mile of this, this sideways-looking-but-progress-making behaviour. We are nearing a clearing, a big, open pit where our turn around is and as we emerge out of the bush, the dogs seem to either lose interest in whatever they were looking at, or lose its scent as all of their heads are now facing forward again. We start to go downhill to the turnaround and we gather speed as we go. I ease my foot on the brake and slow them a bit but now they are loping, despite my foot on the brake, and our speed at around ten miles an hour. Without warning, every dog veers to the left and nearly drags the Ranger through the shrubs and grasses on the side of the trail before I can react and stop them. I call to my leaders to get back on the trail but they don’t listen, which is unusual because they are normally very responsive. I try again. Still nothing. Every dog is straining against their lines, trying to creep just a bit further ahead. I get off the Ranger and go to move the leaders back onto the trail. They go, but like a fighter taken away from an unfinished fight: trying to get around me and back to the action. I’ve been in situations like this before and resign myself to several attempts at convincing the leaders to follow the trail and act like sled dogs, not a pack of wolves. Surprisingly, it was a one-time thing. Once they were on the trail, we resumed our run with no further attempts to chase whatever was in the darkness. Only little Fable stayed in hunting mode: ears up, tail up, head up and looking around. She settled back down and finished the last mile or so like a proper sled dog, though.

The more I run at night, the more accepting I am of it, but I would still prefer to run during the daytime. The important thing is that the dogs are getting out.

Our run over, the dogs await their water and snack back at the truck.

There it is.  The Ranger.  Already outfitted with the gangline and harness/equipment box.

As I signed the last of the papers and get my keys for the machine the salesman tells me that he has just a few things to go over with me about our new Polaris Ranger. I guess this is so they can have a clear conscience when I drive away that if I do kill myself on it, it wasn’t for lack of a warning and a mini demonstration. And safety labels; good God, don’t forget the safety labels. We look at the fluid reservoirs, the spark plug and the engine. I am basically given a grade nine auto course. It’s loaded on the trailer now and all I want to do is get home and take it out for a spin, check out some trails and hope the weather cools off for a run. We have had the Ranger three weeks now and I am happy to report that Jenn is doing well in her new role as Deal Finder. Not only does the Ranger come with a super comfy bench seat and steering wheel, an accelerator and steering wheel, it also has cup holder which will hold a large cup of coffee quite nicely. And, best of all, it seats the three of us comfortably and is incredibly safe for training dogs. We can put it in park anywhere along the trail and never worry that the dogs will pull it down the trail through sheer force like our last rigs. I am glad we decided to go with this machine, despite its cost. I guess we’ll just have to finish closer to the top and bring home more prize money to help pay for it. A short video of our training so far… [httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xFVjtZkI8]

‘Big Dumb’ is the nickname we have given Dario, the German Shepherd that has somehow insinuated himself into our lives. Because, with twenty-five sled dogs and two pet dogs, what we needed most was another dog – and one who came with his own baggage at that. Dario is a young dog and one who has been allowed to have some bad habits prior to coming to us. He was slated to be put down because he bit a kid – and I am not certain that it was a bite, now that I know how he works. I expect he was playing and used his mouth to grab the kid as it ran by. Still wrong, yes, but of purely different intent. Even still, Hunter and her friends are not allowed near him unsupervised. He plays rough, much to the torment of our little Ginger-dog and he’s all about fun which drives Gilligan, the Anti-Fun Patrol, absolutely ’round the bend. In short, he’s a big goof; well intentioned but sort of thick.

He has bonded quite quickly to Jenn, me somewhat and to Hunter entirely. To try and use up some of his youthful energy, Jenn takes him on walks but as he becomes more and more fit, the walks have to necessarily become longer and longer and there is a time factor to consider, so something more strenuous was needed. Lately, Jenn has been swimming him. She will take Dario to a lake and throw his fabric-and-rubber frisbee out into the water and he will bound and splash after it, swimming if he has to.

Jenn has a friend who is a dog trainer and who does everything from agility to dock diving to dogsledding with her mis-matched but entirely well-behaved and obedient gang. Tammy, the trainer, offered Jenn a dock diving session the other day and Jenn has been giddy ever since. I am not sure what the lure is to pitching a floaty thing off a dock and watching your dog fling itself after it, apart from watching how happy the dogs are to do this of course, but really… an entire sport for this? With rules and everything? I bet they even have T-shirts.

Since I am new to Shepherds and dock diving, I stand off to the side and watch. This is what I see:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYAGe18CuR8

All things considered, Dario did well. I guess. I don’t know… it’s dock diving. What do I know about dock diving?

The musher we bought Moxy from had several dogs that were shy. It is a trait that has somehow been transferred to a particular line or lines of dogs in this guy’s kennel. I am certain he is not the only one with dogs that exhibit this trait, though. And I think it is important to point out here that Moxy was in no way mistreated by her previous owner. She did not become shy because she was beaten or improperly socialized. In fact, when I first approached this particular musher about buying some dogs he asked me point blank: “Do you beat your dogs? Because I won’t sell you any if you do.” I had to have a mutual friend vouch for my treatment of the dogs we already had. It’s just a ‘thing’ with some lines of sled dogs.

Back to Moxy and Epic’s puppies now. Jenn and I have always liked Moxy and her attitude towards being a sled dog. Her drive, focus and ability are quite likely the best in our yard; top three, for sure. We were always hesitant to breed her, though, because of her shyness and because a match for her lineage was never available to us either. Recently, however, a stud with a similar background became available to breed and we sent Moxy away to the stud’s kennel for breeding two winters ago. Despite our misgivings about the shyness, we thought that the trait was not likely to show up in the litter but, if it did, it would be slight. We never got a chance to find out as the breeding didn’t take. We spent the next year alternating between “it’s for the best” and “too bad it didn’t take: she’s a really good dog” so when she came into heat late this winter, we decided to breed her again. The stud we went to two years ago is getting older and we wondered if that, combined with the stress of being in a new kennel with new dogs and new people affected the breeding. Epic is a good dog and just happens to be an offspring of the stud we liked so we thought that if we were going to have any success with a breeding, he was going to be our go-to stud.

This has been a long way to say: “Wow. It’s unbelievable how much that shyness trait gets passed on.” When the puppies were born, almost from Day One, they were skittish and afraid of everything. Noises in their house caused them to scurry – as much as new puppies can scurry – to the farthest corners of the whelping box and hide. They would often recoil from being touched, especially when their eyes were still closed. I was very surprised at how strong a trait this was. To be so nervous at such a young age… It has become a big undertaking now to make sure that these puppies are as normal and outgoing as possible. We have had to change almost everything about how we socialize them.

We take the puppies away from their mother as much as possible so that her behaviour doesn’t become imprinted on them. If Jenn or I would be home all day, the puppies would be away from their mother for the whole time. We even began feeding them kibble (ground, soaked and mixed with milk replacer) at two and a half weeks. But, because both of us work, and there is nobody to take care of them during the day, the puppies spend the day with Moxy and we bring them in the house in the evening when we come home. They spend the night in the kitchen on a mat they have claimed. Our practice of making loud noises and moving objects around has been greatly reduced. Even the squeak from a chew toy sent them running into a huddling, shaking ball a few weeks ago. We introduce things to them much more slowly but have found that food is a great equalizer. If we have food or treats, they will be more apt to cover greater distances to come to us, to tolerate being touched by a squeaking toy or overcoming some other obstacle. Ginger, our little mutt house dog, has proved to be a great asset, too. She is very affectionate toward the puppies. She plays with them and encourages them to play back. They seem to take reassurance from her and look to her to see if what just happened should be run away from or is just an everyday occurance; she manages to get them to go farther beyond their comfort zone than we would be able to, even with food.

They have been a very difficult litter in many ways: cautious handling, taking care not to scare them accidentally, slow progress. They are showing a great improvement, though. Before, they would run away when we’d come into their pen, just like their mother, but now they mob us like normal puppies. They seem to be coming around and provided they can continue on this path they may end up being like normal, everyday sled dogs that like a scratch ‘just because’ or a good massage after a hard run.

This was taken not a week ago and already the puppies are too large to pile all into one basket.

The puppies were only a few weeks old here – maybe three – and this was their daily fare from us: ground kibble, milk replacer and water.  For the amount of time they spend with their feet in the dish, one might think that they absorbed the nutrients through their feet.

 

Another picture of the puppies crowded around the food dish.  Always an encouraging sight.

Still more hungry pups.

Tubby, full Dan getting some water.  We had to put collars on them because they have been pretty difficult to tell apart, except for one.  Prior to the collars, we had to look at their noses to see how much pink they had on them and then lift them up to inspect their undercarriage.  The break-away cat collars work better.

So now, here we are, just over seventy days later, and we have four, week-and-a-bit-old puppies. Right from the start, Hunter wanted to name a puppy “Easter,” which we said she could; even if we’d had all males, one of them was going to get the moniker. Jenn and I had decided to name the puppies after characters from some of Robert Service’s poems – partly because we like to name the litters after a theme of some sort – but I suppose we could have changed our theme to match Hunter’s already chosen name. We might have gone with “Islands” as a theme: Easter, Crete, Aruba and Island 23 (it’s in a lake near us). But, instead, we stuck with our plan, so now we have a litter of puppies named: Easter, Barbed Wire Bill (Bill), Dangerous Dan McGrew (Dan) and the Lady Known as Lou (Lou).

They are a little more than a week and a half old so there isn’t much to report on them yet. They are a calm bunch; they don’t fuss or cry when they are taken away from Moxy to be handled and socialized. They like to be picked up and they are content to lay in a heap together. Moxy has been a very doting mother so far and is feeding them well so we see quite a bit of growth in them.

I guess the only thing to do now is post some photos.

Moxy the mom and two glowing white puppies.

 

Puppies sleeping on a bed sheet on the living room floor.  Left to right: Puppy one, puppy two, puppy three and puppy four.

 

More puppies in a pile.  It looks like that is Bill on top of Puppy two.  Puppy three is in the background.

 

This is Dan.  I know him because of his black nose.  He is on top of Lou, who is a darker colour than the rest and pretty hefty.

 

This one’s Bill.

 

Lou, Dan, Bill and Easter.  In that order, depending on where you start.

 

Easter.  Hunter finally put her down long enough for a photo to be taken.

__________________________________

If all had gone according to plan, we would be somewhere in the Carolinas today; maybe even Virginia or somewhere in Pennsylvania, slowly making our way back to Ontario from a ten-day vacation that would have included a trip to Disneyworld and nights spent camping on beaches along the Eastern coast, watching sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. But all didn’t go according to plan.

Despite our restless nature – the kennel name “Nomad” was not just chosen on a whim – we have never been on an extended trip together. The timing has never been right, the finances have never been available, there has never been anyone to take care of our dogs and, for the past few years, we have always had some form of livestock in the summer. This spring, however, we made the decision to forgo the livestock and to take a trip instead. Jenn spent at least a solid month booking hotels, planning the places we’d visit and mapping out the route we’d take; after all, why fly when, as they say, getting there is half the fun.

We were supposed to leave on a Wednesday. By Sunday, our bags were packed and at the front door; passes, hotel conformation numbers and tickets were on a shelf with our passports; sunscreen poked out of every almost-zipped compartment; the groceries had been done for the house/dog sitter; the kitchen floor was swept and the living room was vacuumed. We were ready to go.

Monday evening came, one full day left before we were supposed to leave, and I was outside with Hunter. I had some last-minute welding to do and she was playing in the yard. I had just set up my work pieces and was about to tack them together when I felt more than heard a loud thud and then the scream. I flung my welding mask one way, the welding rod another and ran to the sound that came from the other side of the truck only thirty feet away.

At first, it didn’t look that serious. It looked like Hunter had fallen a foot and a half off of the trailer and was more embarrassed than hurt. But I remembered the heavy ‘thud’ and the scream. This was not embarrassment. I ran over to her and lifted the heavy tailgate of the trailer off of her. Her leg was pinned between the ramp of the tailgate and the ground. I scooped her up and carried her to the steps where we sat down.

Normally, I try not to coddle her too much; I try to divert attention from cuts and bruises rather than make them worse by over reacting to them. But not this time: this time she was really hurt, probably scared, and definitely in need of attention. I held her tightly and tried to get her crying to stop. She managed to get herself under control enough to hear me. I tried to get her to move her foot a little, asking her if it hurt. It did. Lots. Already it had started to swell. My heart sank: it looked bad. I ran into the house to get some ice for the swelling, saying to myself the whole way “please don’t be broken, please don’t be broken…”

As soon as I had wrapped her leg up with the only suitable thing I could find – a bag of last year’s frozen blueberries – I lifted her into the truck, fastened her seatbelt and took off to get Jenn from work and then go to the hospital.

Hunter was in pain the whole ride in – thirty minutes and I was not paying much attention to the speed limit – but she scarcely said a word. Jenn was sitting between the two front seats helping hold Hunter’s leg still and comforting her. At this point, we thought it was badly sprained. The swelling was held in check a little by the blueberries and we had the leg elevated with all the crap we had left in the truck. Thank goodness we can’t seem to keep our truck neat.

At the hospital, the triage nurse moved Hunter’s leg around, rotated her foot and had her push against his chest with her foot. If it hurt her, she never complained. He took her temperature and fitted her with an ID tag and sent us out into the waiting room. It was now six o’clock.

The waiting room was full of people in various stages of pain and suffering. Some were sick with a cold, some were wheeling around IV bags, others were losing blood at a worrisome rate and yet, not many seemed to be paid any attention. We all had to sit on uncomfortable chairs and for anyone in a similar situation as ours, with a kid who isn’t comfortable unless one leg is elevated, this proves to be a challenge.

I could make this post about our seriously understaffed, over-administrated hospital, or wait times, but I won’t. I will leave it at this: we were finally called to the examining room at 02h30, a full eight and a half hours after our admittance. The people beside us with an infant suffering from severe bloody diarrhea waited equally as long. When we were finally called to the examining room, we waited a further half-hour. We still thought that Hunter’s leg was sprained because the swelling had gone down and there was no bruising at all. Jenn and I, amid our frustration earlier, had debated going home but since we were headed to Florida in a day and a half, we thought it best to stick things out and make sure.

It was well that we did: the x-rays that were finally taken at 03h00 showed a break in Hunter’s leg. Both bones, just above the growth plates. The balloon of excitement for our trip lost all of it’s air at once because with a cast on her leg, Hunter would be in no shape to run around Disney or frolic on the beaches. Our trip would have to wait.

The first x-ray of Hunter’s leg.  As the technician said: “There’s a reason it hurts.”

The hastily applied cast that Hunter left the hospital with.

 

Hunter’s leg was put in a cast that left Jenn and I wondering if this was the doctor’s first day at the hospital or perhaps their last. Finally looked at, diagnosed and treated, we left the hospital at 03h45.

Jenn spent the following day in the hospital, waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to reset Hunter’s leg and put on a proper cast, which ended up being a three quarter length, fiberglass cast, ending mid-thigh. Even with an appointment at 09h00, Hunter wasn’t fully finished until around 19h00 at night. She and Jenn spent the night in the hospital and were finally released mid-afternoon on Wednesday, forty-two hours since our admittance Monday night.

Hunter’s x-ray after being set and re-cast.

 

Hunter and her new cast.

 

It has now been just over two weeks with Hunter and her cast. She has found her mobility in a wheelchair quite well and is managing her walker with ease. She goes in to see the orthopedic surgeon on Thursday to see if everything has set well enough to have the three quarter length cast removed and a shorter one put on in its place.

Once things had sorted themselves out, I managed to find out what happened with Hunter and trailer gate. She had pulled out the only pin holding the gate upright because she thought it would make a great drawbridge for the game she was playing. I can’t begin to explain how bad I feel that I never bothered to replace the second pin for the gate.

———————–

*UPDATE on the kid: Hunter’s leg is healing well, according to the orthopedic surgeon. Her long cast was removed and a shorter one below her knee was put on. Next week, the doctors will have another look at Hunter’s leg and then decide if she is ready for a walking cast.

Hunter’s leg after two weeks of healing.

 

The new cast.  (and a tiger drawn on the other leg – she ran out of room on the old cast.)