She Lay Bleeding....

He held her close, cradling her as he sat on the snow-covered porch. As I drove in, I could see a crisis unfolding, on the veranda of the little cottage we called home. It was my second year of teaching, in this small town near the bay. I ran to the spot where my husband, frigid and barely coherent, remained, holding the leg of our young female retriever. (She'd become a mother, two months earlier). Somehow, while running and jumping outside in the cold winter air, she'd severed the artery of her front leg. A blanket of crimson red snow, all around, told me her grim story.

He had been waiting for my return, not realizing that I had stopped to buy groceries. We had one car and it was with me, being the primary breadwinner, back then. As 'John' held her close, I wondered where this crisis was going. For over an hour, he'd been cradling her, applying the necessary life-saving pressure to stop the blood from oozing from her body. His hands were gripped in a life and death hold. She had been chasing her 'sons' when the incident happened. An artery in her front leg had been sliced. How had it happened, I wondered? ... Ice and snow were everywhere, that cold winter's day, especially, on the fallen branches of the evergreen trees nearby. Had the outdoor 'white' and 'clear' landscape fashioned a sort of malevolent weapon, hidden among the trees, waiting for its next victim? There was no time for tears. In an emergency, tears waste precious time and serve no useful purpose. I could see that our girl had lost a lot of blood. Blood circulates to keeps us warm. Was she warm enough to survive? With cellphones decades away and neighbours, in this cottage country winter hideaway, in critically short supply, we had to act quickly. John was unable to get help without leaving her, bleeding, while her two baby sons, the last of her two-month-old litter, watched, nearby, through the glass door from inside the tiny cottage. We ignored their cries. (Their mother was injured and they wanted answers.)

I drove to the emergency veterinarian clinic in the next town. There, the doctor assured us that dogs do not bleed to death easily. It was a rare event. He stitched her wound, wrapping her leg in layer upon layer of gauze bandage for that solid 'cast' look. That evening, as I ate the warmed up can of beans for supper, she vomited on the carpet. It was then that I witnessed the severity of the event that had occurred earlier that day. On the carpet, in an expansive figure-eight technicolour pattern with deep red hues all around, encompassing much of the room, Sheba emptied her stomach contents that had punctuated the day's events. All that she had licked was now everywhere for me to see and clean up. She had attended to her wound while waiting for help to arrive, a nurse and heroine, all in one. Animals do what they must without fanfare or praise. I was grateful for the happy ending.

The year previous, our puppy girl had been discovered, wondering in a famous Toronto landmark - High Park - having been left there, deliberately. My brother had found her. He had been a life guard there during the summer. It was his turn to babysit this three-month-old cutie. He brought her home. I had just secured a teaching position in the far north and would be moving there in a few months with my partner. She became ours, forever. Since that moment I began a love-affair with retrievers. Then our Sheba became a mom to a healthy litter of nine, all delivered in the cottage we called home. 'John' had been the 'mid-wife', Our 'mistake' would never happen again. We had forgotten that important first step in pet-ownership. Since Sheba was not allowed to roam, was always on a leash, that thought had not entered our minds till a trip out west, that summer, to visit family and friends, changed everything. The urgent need to care for this abandoned pup had superseded anything else. How naive we were. Never again.

Sheba healed well in the days and weeks to come. Her ordeal was a reminder to never ever take things for granted. We moved to a southern community, leaving her and her puppy son in our little abode during the work day. We thought we had everything covered till we realized how much retrievers loved shoes and other things. Eventually they taught us the rules of pet ownership. We are still learning from them today while loving them in the process.