Feliz and the Porcupine

Feliz and me in Sedgwick, Maine, circa 2002.
We're posing in front of a spruce sapling planted in memory of a cousin.

 

My father had an exceptionally high pain threshold.

His tolerance for physical pain exceeded that of most people's.  How did we know?  He once accidentally dropped a full-length beveled door mirror onto his left foot, and it wasn't until four or five days later, after it swelled so much he couldn't put on any kind of slipper or shoe, that Mom convinced him to go see a doctor.

His orthopedist was incredulous.  He called Mom into the exam room after getting Dad's X-rays back.  "Look at this" he marveled, showing Mom the slides.  "He should be in incredible pain, and unable to even limp on it like he's doing."  Dad, who was not yet retired and fully lucid, simply shrugged.  Apparently the only reason he limped was because his foot had swollen so much, no part of it was pliable.

So it shouldn't have come as any surprise that his dog, Feliz, seemed to have a high pain threshold as well.  And how did we figure that out?

On our last extended family trip to Maine, we stayed in the home of a cousin of Mom's, who was living elsewhere while caring for a sick friend.  Cousin Janet's house features a conventionally-sized rural Maine yard, plus a sprawling, lush lawn further back in her multi-acre property.  It is partially ringed by a thick forest, as well as high grasses from adjacent, unmowed pasturelands.  A neighbor with a commercial-grade lawnmower kept this part of those old pastures cut and trimmed for her.  And we got to enjoy it during our stay.

Feliz loved it too, because as a pure-bred collie, he had an innate herding instinct.  When the five grandkids were there, he could stand on the crown of that lawn's manicured hillock and see everybody who was walking or playing or chasing across its emerald expanse.  He didn't have to fret or bark - just stand sentinel and watch.

Beyond this grassy idyll snakes an old, abandoned cart path, deep into those woods thick with huge birches, maples, and pines.  I ventured down the path a couple of times, but its broad canopy of tree branches overhead creates something of a sanctuary for Maine's infamously ravenous summertime mosquitoes, so I mostly stayed where open breezes helped disperse airborne pests.

Dad, however, didn't seem to have the same problem with those mosquitoes, and neither did Feliz.  Every morning, they took a stroll along that wooded path, following its meanderings for quite a ways into the secluded habitat of deer, wild turkeys, black bears, and - as we eventually learned - porcupines.

During their walks, Dad kept Feliz on a leash precisely because he knew they weren't in any conventional suburban park.  Many of Maine's human-made forest paths, some dating back far longer than a century, have reverted to their original wild habitat, and Dad couldn't risk Feliz, with his inquisitive and protective canine instincts, charging any of the native population!

One bright and glorious afternoon, Dad, Mom and I returned to Cousin Janet's after one of our visits to Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island, an hour's drive away.  As usual, Feliz greeted us and let us know he was happy we were back.  As he sniffed around us (probably detecting that we'd been someplace interesting without him!), we each noticed things sticking out of his pronounced proboscis.  Collies have a long nose - we affectionately called his a "schnoz" - and wouldn't you know it, but there were about a half-dozen long needles sticking out of it!  But Feliz showed absolutely no signs of pain or discomfort, or even awareness of their existence.

Then Dad recalled earlier that morning, during their daily walk up into the forest, they'd seen a porcupine just off of the old cart path.  Dad had immediately turned around, pulling Feliz away from it with his collared leash, and had no clue that he'd let the dog get close enough to the porcupine for anything to have happened.  Feliz never yelped in any kind of surprise or pain.

Did you know that porcupines don't actually "shoot" their quills?  Whatever quills they release come from their tail, which they swing as a defensive weapon, like a prickly paddle.  So apparently, Feliz had managed to stick his long nose just close enough and just long enough to agitate the prickly rodent, who was able to smack that proboscis with its tail, leaving his barbed calling cards.  During the time we'd been away that day, those barbs had helped the quills embed their way further into Feliz's skin and cartilage.

Now, before you start feeling too sorry for Feliz, remember:  He was demonstrating absolutely no obvious pain!  He was his usual happy, slobbery self, glad we were all together again, eager for attention, but not at all interested in having us try to hold him still while we examined his face.  

He promptly slurped down a fresh bowl of water Dad got for him with no clear signs of any distress.  We three humans, however, were astounded and perplexed!  And getting a bit distressed, even though Feliz wasn't.  It was 5 pm, which was probably closing time for the only nearby vet we were aware of, 15 minutes away in Blue Hill.  But Dad called their office anyway, and sure, they could stay open.  They hadn't finished seeing all of their patients for the day anyway, and removing porcupine quills was something they did frequently.  The vet would later tell us he'd removed them not just out of every type of household pet and farmyard animal you can think of, but out of human beings as well! 

"It's all in the technique," he assured us.

But he also wanted to charge Dad about $1,000 to extract the six or so in Feliz's schnoz.  Dad responded with some sticker shock!  We understood quills are not easy to remove, and the procedure to do so usually is itself painful.  Indeed, the big pricetag involved anesthesia the vet wanted to use on Feliz, and included a potential overnight stay for the dog if he didn't manage the anesthesia's side effects well.  

Up until then, Feliz had otherwise been a surprisingly healthy dog, and Dad hadn't ever needed to spend that kind of money on his healthcare.  So finally, I brokered a deal between Dad and the vet:  How about the vet pull out one quill without anesthesia, and gauge Feliz's reaction?  If the procedure caused obvious pain, which would understandably compromise the vet's professional ethics, then anesthesia would be necessary before removing the rest.  However, if Feliz barely blanched, how about they just continue pulling out the others without anesthesia?

Dad agreed with that.  And the vet and his nurse, after having observed Feliz all this time and realizing he was displaying no obvious pain whatsoever, agreed too.  So Dad and I left the exam room and walked down a long hallway to the waiting room.  Blue Hill is a small village by Texas standards, but this veterinary clinic seemed quite large, giving testament to the area's agrarian population.  

As we walked, I think Dad was bracing himself for that $1,000 anesthesia bill.  But he needn't have.

I kid you not:  Before Dad and I got to the waiting room, we could hear that distinctive pitter-patter of Feliz's four paws bounding towards us across the tile flooring!  Sure enough, we both spun around, and there was Feliz, his sweet, trademark smile across his face, his dancing eyes, tongue dangling out of his mouth, and NOT ONE QUILL in his schnoz!

Behind him came the vet and his nurse, both of them grinning broadly.  The vet just laughed:  "We pulled out the first one, and he didn't even flinch!  So we both went to work on the others and the nurse swabbed it all with antibiotic ointment, and opened the door!"  And he scrambled away from them as quickly as he could.

Apparently, Feliz wasn't in physical pain, but he definitely didn't want us to leave him alone in that room with those strangers!

You see, our dear Feliz was a shelter dog Dad rescued from the city pound in Lancaster, just south of Dallas.  He was within a day from being euthanized because he'd been unclaimed, meaning he'd probably been there for a while.  Before being brought to the Lancaster pound, he'd been on the streets for an unknown period of time, abandoned, and apparently hit by a car, because his right hip didn't work very well; he always would favor it.  The shelter staff said he'd arrived with a tag on his collar listing an Austin address, which is about a three-hour drive away, but they couldn't locate anybody who knew him.  

Before we'd had him very long, we realized he had some issues with separation anxiety.  He hated it whenever we'd all leave the house at the same time - he had a remarkable ability to pout and make us feel guilty for leaving him completely alone!  And he'd usually go somewhat bonkers when we'd return - excited as each one of us got out of the car, through the garage, and into the house.  

During his time with us, Dad took him to two different vets in Texas.  Both of them figured his hip had been broken at one point, but each also independently advised no type of corrective surgery.  Yes, he limped, but it didn't seem to be from pain, but simply from the break growing back improperly, because he'd never received the proper care at the proper time.  Feliz had long since learned to accommodate that hip's dysfunctionality, and surgery now would cause him more distress than it was worth.

After learning the hip was not a serious issue, Dad took him for evening walks around our suburban neighborhood, and discovered that while he loved those walks, Feliz initially refused to pass any stormwater drains that are built into the curbs where we live.  We came to presume that since the canine sense of smell is far more powerful than ours, perhaps there were odors emanating from those drains that we humans couldn't detect, but that reminded him of smells from when he lived on the streets, or in shelters.  Thankfully, though, Feliz eventually learned that those drains were nothing to fear.  

We hadn't considered how leaving him with only a doctor and nurse in that exam room might potentially traumatize the poor thing.  I'm sure the smells and sounds of an animal care facility, whether in Texas or Maine, seemed horribly familiar and foreboding to a former shelter dog.

"Get done with whatever you're doing to my schnoz and let me outta here!" was the attitude both the vet and his nurse distinctly received from Feliz as they worked quickly to remove those quills.  And as soon as he was reunited with us in the lobby, which was at the end of that hallway, our poor happy dog literally relieved himself all over their floor.

"Don't worry," the receptionist laughed.  "We clean up worse than that many, many times each day!"

Once in Mom and Dad's minivan, riding back to Cousin Janet's, I more closely inspected Feliz's schnoz, and all I could see were about six small red dots where minuscule amounts of blood had clotted as the antibiotic ointment dried.

Amazing.  

Of course, it wasn't until later that we realized how cool it would have been to ask the vet for those quills as souvenirs.  And to my recollection, Dad never ventured back up that old cart path again.  These days, Cousin Janet tells us she has deer and wild turkey regularly meandering through her yard, crossing the road in front of her house, heading down to the shore - something that never used to be commonplace when the woods and fields around her were used for logging and farming.  She's even seen bears outside her windows, loping along, headed to the shore.

Hey - coastal Maine is so beautiful, one doesn't have to be a human to enjoy it!  Although actually, since many animals naturally like salt, the Atlantic Ocean obviously provides plenty of it for them.

So even though it was bad enough, maybe it's just as well the worst Feliz encountered was that porcupine.  

I'm thinking the only good encounters with bear claws are those of the glazed pastry variety!

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