My dog was bitten in the face by a squirrel today. I was on a conference call at work when it happened.
I didn’t know a showdown between the tamed and untamed world had gone down until I opened the door and walked out of my workshop. I was getting ready to leave to pick up my daughter since my wife had a dentist appointment, and nothing says fun to a seven year old like watching her mom get her teeth cleaned. Am I right?
My dog Motzie was pacing back and forth in front of a tall pine tree in the backyard, stopping to look up at her escaped prize. She’s gotten really good at sneaking up on the little bastards.
Then, my dog turned my way. I thought she had a flower petal or something stuck in her fur underneath her eye, so I walked over to wipe it off.
It wasn’t a flower petal of any sort. It was a plug of her skin missing about the size of my pinky fingernail, along with some fur. The squirrel must have run up the tree with it. The exposed flesh was red with blood.
My dog had this big smile on her face. It said, “I almost got the squirrel, Dad. I had it in my mouth for a second before it got away.”
She smiles like this a lot. It trips me out. It’s an honest to goodness smile. Happy as a pig in shit.
A few years ago, when I was to hop aboard a plane to Philadelphia, to combat my fear of flying I stared at a photo of my dog on my flip phone. I had purposely taken the photo for this very moment. I’d read an article that in times of high anxiety, looking at a photo of your dog will help calm your nerves.
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Considering that I was scared shitless to fly in a plane, I figured it couldn’t hurt.
So, there I was, surrounded by strangers waiting for our plane to board, with my flip phone open staring at a photo of my dog. Everyone around me was holding an iPhone or an Android device. I was sitting there with my lime green flip phone I’d had for seven years.
I did this for thirty minutes until I started to mellow.
The Xanax I had taken thirty minutes before probably helped as well.
I forgot to mention the Xanax.
About a week before my flight, I went to my doctor and confessed I was on the verge of quitting my job I was so deathly afraid of flying.
She said, “Have you ever heard of Xanax?”
I called my wife to let her know I might be a few minutes late in meeting her at the dentist because I needed to clean up Motzie’s wound first. I’m always running late. My wife didn’t answer.
If she had, I was going to say, “I’m running late. Motzie got bitten in the face by a squirrel.”
If you enjoyed this, send the link to a friend by text with the message, “You gotta read this. It’s about a squirrel and a dog.”
Thanks for reading.
Photo by Niilo Isotalo on Unsplash
3 replies on “My dog was bitten in the face by a squirrel”
“Happy as a pig in shit.”
This cracked me up. As did the “Oh yeah, and the Xanax” part. 🙂 I hope your pup’s okay.
Poor Motzie!!! Maybe she can keep her prize if it happens again so she can really smile even bigger!
Jeffrey – Thanks for subscribing to my blog – I just subscribed to your via e-mail. I read your story about the Canada goose encounter and going to pass that link on to a few people because they know of my encounters with both swans and Canada Geese. I always like to walk past a gaggle of geese at the park where I walk and one of them decides, for no reason at all, to go off on you. Just as you described it – the pink tongue wagging and hissing and the flapping of the wings. And I’m thinking “WTH – I didn’t do anything to you, so why are you doing this?” One time I made the supreme mistake of taking a bag of bread to feed them (early in my walking regimen where I was being a kind person having never had them go off on me) … I had quite a big bag of torn-up bread and I had many takers, but then the others wanted a piece of the action and there was no bread left. They were mad at me and chased me – a passel of them. I ran like hell and disappeared into a group of walker so they couldn’t find me. They weren’t sure they wanted to “shelter me” and that was the last time I took bread to feed the geese. In a few weeks the goslings will arrive, then you have to be very careful not to get too near, even when taking pictures. We had a golfer here in SE Michigan who was attacked when he walked too close to a Canada goose nest. I’ve been attacked by a swan earlier this year – that sucker came out of the water at high speed, moving on those big feet and came at me … I, like you, walked backward in the snow and was going to climb on a park bench to escape him (perhaps not his bill, but his body) and decided to toss him some peanuts instead … I always feed the squirrels peanuts. It worked thankfully. Interesting about the squirrel taking a chunk out of Mozzarella Cheese … that is exactly why I won’t hand feed the squirrels and I just wrote about that earlier this week. A guy at the park had no issue with it – they are still a wild animal and it is enough I let them dance around and on my walking shoes when they absolutely cannot wait another minute for a peanut. Really?! Your mom never told you patience was a virtue?