Lunch with the Girls

Four friends having lunch at the Pic in Marlborough...sharing one Margarita... a little goes a long way. Who says Seniors don't have fun!

A Series of Misadventures - a Doggone story

Zoe and Foxy

I woke up this morning feeling a little tired and shaky after my four day trip to Denver where I didn’t get much sleep. I was going to get up and go to the gym, but decided my body needed another 45 minutes of sleep instead.

Not long after, I heard my daughter Amy in the kitchen making breakfast. I got up, brushed my teeth and went in to join her. We had our usual oatmeal and hash browns and some light conversation. Anastasia was getting ready to go to gymnastics camp, a fun change from her usual daily gymnastics workout.

After clearing the table, I headed to my room to take a shower. Amy went downstairs to get ready for work and Anastasia took the opportunity to play a computer game. Zoe, our Chihuahua/Russell mix came up to scrounge for food. She sits up and begs and looks very cute. She’s all white except for a brown square patch over her left eye.

We have two other dogs, Mischa, an eight year old standard Schnauzer and Foxy, a four month old Corgy. Foxy was a replacement dog after Amy’s precious Anya, a six year old mini-schnauzer, died from Cushings a few months ago. Foxy is very energetic and loves to wrestle with Zoe, who at three years old loves to play.

I was getting ready to take a shower when I heard one of the dogs yelping. Then both dogs were yelping. I thought that probably Foxy was playing too rough with Zoe, but then the yelping got louder and shriller. Both dogs sounded like they were yelping with pain.

I headed to the stairway to see what was the matter. The yelping got louder and more persistent. I looked down to see Anastasia standing there with her hands over her ears and a panicked look on her face. She looked up at me with tears running down her face and said “I don’t know what to do”. I thought the dogs were fighting and she didn’t know how to break it up.

I flew down the stairs - amazingly quickly considering my arthritic knees - and found Amy trying to get at Zoe and Foxy who were both making agonizing screams at this point. It looked like Foxy had Zoe’s throat in her mouth and was killing her. But then Amy looked up at me and said “she’s stuck, Foxy’s stuck”. I rushed over to find Zoe’s chain collar wrapped around Foxy’s lower jaw. Foxy was struggling to get free and yelping as she did. But each time she pulled and twisted, the collar got tighter and tighter around Zoe’s neck. Zoe was unable to get free and was visibly choking.

I put my hands in Foxy’s mouth and tried unsuccessfully to pull the chain out of her mouth. I encountered her very sharp baby teeth in the process and sustained several puncture wounds. Amy was near hysteria.

I told Amy to hold them as still as she could and I ran from room to room looking for a wire cutter. I couldn’t remember where the tools were. I checked the basement. I checked the office. Then I checked the basement again. I ran upstairs and grabbed a heavy duty pair of scissors, but as I came down, I realized they wouldn’t work.

It was chaos. Both dogs were struggling and trying to get free, all the while making the most horrendous noises. Zoe was being strangled, Amy was sobbing uncontrollably saying “don’t die, don’t die Zoe”. Anastasia was standing white face.

I somehow got down on the floor and took ahold of Zoe. Amy was trying restrain Foxy and keep her from pulling the chain tighter. Zoe’s body went rigid and Amy screamed “She’s dying, she’s dying”. I yelled to Anastasia to call 911 while I tried to calm Zoe. Anastasia couldn’t find the phone and I kept yelling “Call 911, call 911”. Finding the phone, she had trouble dialing because she was so upset. I was alternating between trying to calm Zoe, trying to calm Amy and listening for what Anastasia was saying. I heard her say something about her dog to the dispatcher. Afraid that they wouldn’t understand the gravity of the situation, I started yelling loudly “I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding. Tell them I’m bleeding”.

Well, I was bleeding, profusely from Foxy’s sharp baby teeth.

I turned my full attention to Zoe. I couldn’t see any way to get the collar off. We couldn’t get it unstuck from Foxy’s mouth. Then I asked Anastasia to bring me the phone again and to dial 911 again. She did and set it beside me.

At this point, I am laying on the floor. holding Zoe and trying to calm her. All I have on is a tee shirt and underwear. Amy is practically on top of me with Foxy in her lap. Prior to this disaster, Amy had just gone into the bathroom to use the toilet. Upon hearing the dog’s distress yelps, she jumped up to see what was the matter. So now she was sitting on the floor with her pants down around her knees. As I was talking to 911 again, she realized the fire department was coming and she was half naked. She couldn’t let go of the dog to pull up her underpants, so Anastasia grabbed a towel and threw it over her mother’s butt. Total chaos.

I told the dispatcher to hurry, that we were in dire straits and we needed a cutting tool. Next thing I knew, four fireman came in full gear, boots, hats, coats. It must have been an extremely strange site to see two semi-dressed women on the floor practically on top of one another and holding two dogs very close together. They were trying to assess the situation which was difficult because I was bleeding, Amy was sobbing uncontrollably, Foxy was squirming to get loose and Zoe was gurgling like she was dying.

Amy was screaming “hurry, hurry” as the fireman tried to use a cutting tool on the collar. He couldn’t do it. Next another fireman tried a different tool. He squeezed as hard as he could but all he succeeded in doing was to make Zoe gag further. Amy screamed louder. “She’s dying, she’s dying”. Zoe’s eyes were bulging and filling with blood. Her nose was bubbling and frothing, her tongue was hanging out and blue and she lost control of her bodily functions and defecated all over Amy’s legs.

Another fireman came in with the hugest pair of cutters I have ever seen. He wanted to use them but I said “No, you’ll cut her head off”. The nose of the cutters couldn’t even get close to the chain without taking half the dog with it. The fireman next to me called for a ring cutter. It seemed an eternity before someone brought one. They tried it and it didn’t work. All they succeeded in doing was jamming it with fur. Another firefighter came in and tried his luck with another set of wire cutters. I was trying to keep Zoe calm and she was calmer – except when they tried cutting the collar. Each successive try caused Zoe to choke further and I could feel her body go rigid as the air was being choked out of her.

Amy was so distraught. She thought Zoe was dead. She had the disadvantage of seeing her face and bulging eyes and drooping blue tongue. She sobbed uncontrollably. I tried to calm her, telling her that Zoe was still alive. But I was so scared that any minute she would stop breathing and that would be it.

Suddenly there was a pop and the firefighter said “I got it. He had broken through. Finally, he removed it from Zoe’s neck. Then Amy was able to remove it from Foxy’s mouth. I sat exhausted on the floor with Zoe, also exhausted, on my lap.


The fireman stood up and said “A life saved – a good way to start the day”. Then they all disappeared as quickly as they had come with us thanking them as they went out the door. I couldn’t get up. My knees suddenly remembered they don’t work that well and I was too stiff to get up with her in my arms. Amy quickly finished getting dressed and called the vet whose answering machine came on stating that they opened at 8:00am. It was 7:59.

Anastasia picked up her lunch box from under where I was sitting. It was covered in (my) blood. I thought it was from the dog, but apparently most of the blood came from the puncture wounds in my fingers. Amy and Anastasia headed to the vets with Zoe.

It all turned out okay. Three hundred dollars later we learned that Zoe’s trachea was not damaged. Her eye needed attention and the vet kept her for observation all day. Mid-day we learned that the color was coming back to her gums. They had been blue grey when she got there, but the pink was retuning.

I took Foxy to her vet in the afternoon because her mouth was swollen from the chain being wrapped so tight around her lower jaw. She didn’t have any serious damage either. Both Amy and I soaked our hands in iodine and put bandages on all our cuts. Amy has scratches from Foxy’s claws all over her legs and arms. Anastasia has decided to take being a vet off her list of careers when she grows up. The last two trips to the vet have been too traumatic for her (six months ago her dog Anya died suddenly from Cushings disease - Foxy was Anya’s replacement from a friend).

As for me, I gathered up all of the chain collars, which we used to use for walking the dogs, and deposited them in the waste basket.