My Hero

Chann the puppy is a whirlwind of energy, except when he’s napping so he can grow (while mentally plotting more shenanigans). At his second vet visit on August 11^th he weighed 19 lbs, more than double his weight when he arrived July 8^th. Even weeds can’t keep up with that level of growth.

Conall adores him and helps wear Chann out by wrestling with him and chasing him around the yard. Finn continues to try to ignore Chann, but Chann makes that nearly impossible. Conall runs interference, distracting Chann by wrestling with him when Chann taunts Finn into a reaction (loud barking). Conall has become the canine mediator, a heavy obligation but given Conall’s sweet personality, I’m not surprised.

Chann is developing into a smart, sassy, bubbly, and inquisitive little guy. And athletic. He still has adorably awkward moments, like tumbling over his own feet when charging full speed down slope in the back yard. But he’s also remarkably agile for his age. His legs are longer, he’s running faster, and gaining endurance on long walks with me and Conall in the fields and woods across the road. Won’t be long before he starts running short distances with me and Conall.

Chann loves our adventures in nature. So much to sniff, hear, see, and taste. I can envision the natural GPS in his brain working like a chip-sized computer. When we come to a new intersection, Conall continues whichever way I point, but Chann stops. Full stop. Since he’s on leash, I stop, too. Chann looks carefully in every direction, memorizing what the intersection looks and smells like, storing data in his GPS. After about 30 seconds, he starts following Conall again.

Every Malamute I’ve lived with possessed a perfect sense of direction, always knowing the shortest way home or to the trailhead. I’ve never worried about getting lost.

Ah, but Chann’s puppy brain is easily distracted by the big world. So much to learn, often using taste. He tries to eat all the purple clover flowers, or grass seed heads swaying in the breeze. He has decided he likes to eat rabbit pellets, which he (unfortunately) learned from Conall. (He’ll eat almost anything, so I watch him like a hawk. I choose my battles, scolding only for those things I think will make him truly sick.) Chann chases butterflies and dragonflies. He has a keen sense of smell: one time he pulled me off the path into the taller grass, nose clearly searching for something until he found it: dog poop, invisible to the eye. I watch his nose go up to sniff the air at the exact same moment Conall’s nose does the same; I can’t see what they smell, but it’s clear they’ve both caught an interesting scent.

All signs point to a dog with senses as keen as Conall’s. I couldn’t be happier.

Now that most of my yard’s wild blueberries and raspberries are gone, Chann has discovered wild apples. There are two trees that shed tons of small apples into the yard each year. I would prefer he not eat them; the seeds can be toxic, although he’d have to eat something like 100-200 apples to reach a level that would make him sick. There are too many, falling daily, for me to keep him away from them, so I try to supervise and keep the apple eating to a minimum, a battle I fight half-heartedly.

Turns out, though, apples with toxic seeds are the least worrisome and toxic thing in my yard.

I spent a lot of money this spring getting the entire back yard fenced to keep out dangerous critters like porcupines. Conall had an unfortunate and costly encounter with one on a Sunday morning a couple years ago, not long after we moved to Vermont. I wanted to enjoy my yard without worrying one of the dogs would be quilled, or sprayed by a skunk, or encounter a coyote. I used coated-wire fencing, four feet high, flush to the ground, with 2” x 3” mesh. It gives me a sense of security, especially when seeing a porcupine wander down the driveway twice this summer (alerted by Conall’s angry barking).

Unfortunately, the mesh doesn’t keep out reptiles and amphibians.

At 6:00 am on Friday, August 11^th, I took all three boys out into both the front and back yards to do their business. It was a beautiful morning, a few clouds drifting high in a blue sky, temperatures comfortable in the low 60sF. This has been our normal summer morning routine since Chann’s arrival. Until that morning, no issues.

I followed the dogs into the back yard. I carried the shovel I use to toss their poop over the fence. After a few minutes, from several feet away, I watched Conall and Chann laser focus onto something in the grass near a storage shed. Then that something jumped.

Shit. A toad, I said to myself.

A week earlier, Chann noticed a toad near the door in the front yard when he and I went out in the middle of the night so he could pee. Chann growled at it, alerting me. (Yay, Chann!) I quickly scooped it up with the shovel and tossed it over the fence. I mentioned it in a Facebook post. A friend in NY responded, warning that toads and even frogs here can be toxic to dogs.

So that’s what flooded my brain synapsis when I realized Conall and Chann had found a toad: Toxic!! Nooooo!!

With abject horror, I watched Conall pick the toad up in his mouth. “Drop it!!” I yelled, running toward him. When I got near, Conall had a strange look in his eyes, a mix of I want to and I can’t. Chann, right there next to Conall’s mouth, is extremely food driven (he was underweight when I got him). Chann wanted whatever “food” Conall had found.

As I continued begging Conall to drop the toad, he started drooling excessively, then frothing. It happened so fast! I wanted to scream. I felt helpless. Conall wouldn’t open his mouth. I kept saying “Drop it, drop it,” but whenever I tried to grab him to pry open his mouth, he growled at me and moved away. And wherever Conall moved, Chann stayed right with him, focused on his mouth, waiting, hoping for something to eat.

“You are not going to die on me this morning, Conall,” I said, more to myself than him.

Conall’s tongue moved strangely in his mouth as he frothed. Not in and out, but up and down, contained within his teeth, his jaws clenched but lips curled up so I could see his teeth. I couldn’t tell whether the frog was still in his mouth or he’d swallowed it. After what seemed like forever, but was probably no more than a few minutes, the frothing stopped. No toad in his mouth. I could tell Conall was still in pain and upset, head lowered, pacing, sometimes pawing at his mouth, but the worst seemed over. I mentally started planning a trip to the veterinary ER, the closest one that’s an hour away, just in case.

I ran inside for my phone to google toads and dogs, to see if there was anything I could do to offset the toxin. The first article I selected listed terrible neurological and heart rhythm issues, even death. Thankfully I read far enough to discover they were talking about the much larger toads (Bufo, or cane) that live in the south.

Googling toads in Vermont, I discovered Conall ate an American toad (based on the size and appearance of the one I scooped the tossed that night a week earlier). They’re also toxic, but after the drooling and frothing, the only other symptoms are throwing up and possibly diarrhea. No dangerous neuro or cardio issues. The article suggested washing Conall’s mouth out with water, but again, he wouldn’t let me open his mouth and he wouldn’t drink water on his own.

We all retreated inside the house. After about ten minutes, Conall tossed up an enormous amount of yellow-green bile on the floor. No frog parts. Just liquid. Chann ran right for it, hoping for food, but even he realized that nasty substance wasn’t worth consuming.

After that, Conall slowly returned to normal. He even ate his breakfast. Relief washed over me.

Later, my mind calmed, I did more research on American toads. I learned they’re mostly nocturnal, and most active and seen in yards after an overnight rain. It’s been a wet summer where I live. It had rained the night before. I vowed to be more vigilant.

The very next day, that vigilance paid off.

Taking Chann out for an afternoon pee break, Conall and Finn came with us into the back yard. The dogs dispersed, following their noses. (I have a large yard. The fenced-in area of the front and back yards combined is roughly a half-acre.) Chann headed for the raspberry and blueberry shrubs. I was meandering, looking for missed dog poop, when I almost stepped on a snake. With a toad in its mouth.

Goddammit!

A week earlier, in the middle of the day, Conall and Finn were snoozing under a willow tree beside the front side of the house that provides cool dirt and shade on sunny days. Chann was chasing bugs near where I was sitting in a chair, reading a magazine. Chann started growling, lunging and backing away from something in the grass. Curious, I went over and saw a medium-sized, yellowish snake, all curled up in defensive mode, like a rattler. My trusty shovel nearby, I grabbed it, approached the snake and scooped it up. Thankfully it stayed curled up in the shovel as I tossed it into the trees beyond the fence.

I rarely see any snakes where I live in Vermont. I grew up around garter snakes, the black ones with yellow stripes. In Idaho I made sure I lived and played at high enough elevations to avoid rattlesnakes. I didn’t recognize the snake I’d tossed. It was larger than the garter snakes I remembered from childhood, and had a more checkered pattern. Could it be poisonous, I wondered? I googled snakes in Vermont. Turns out it was a garter snake, a common Eastern garter snake.

This time, though, I was confronted with a snake and a toad, engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Part of me wanted to let the snake finish the job of eating the toad, but I was terrified of another dog-frothing-at-the-mouth incident, so I took action.

I attempted to scoop both with my shovel, but the snake spit out the toad. Most worried about the toad, and all three dogs still oblivious to the drama unfolding, I scooped up the toad and trotted (in a low-key way so as not to arouse dog interest) to the side of the yard and tossed it as far as I could. The boys were none the wiser. I snuck back to the snake. It refused to cooperate with a ride in the shovel, so I encouraged it to move toward the side of the yard by walking right behind it as it slithered through the grass. It disappeared into the raspberry canes and goldenrod plants.

I was grateful none of the dogs came to investigate what I was doing.

Was I meeting the same toad, and the same snake, over and over, in a sort of reptile/amphibian Groundhog Day scenario?

Whatever, it’s exhausting.

Seeing the toad in the snake’s mouth brought back two memories.

The first summer I lived here, I was mowing the back yard. Since it wasn’t fenced yet, the boys were in the house. I nearly stepped on a snake with a wood frog’s leg tight in its mouth. The frog couldn’t move, and the snake remained still as I approached. Feeling sorry for the frog, I tapped the snake lightly with my shovel. It released the frog and retreated under the raspberry canes. The frog hopped away.

That same summer, Conall found a toad in the back yard. He picked it up and immediately spit it out, but that was enough exposure to the toxin in the toad’s skin to cause brief drooling and pawing at his mouth. I’d forgotten all about that until the recent encounter with the toad-eating garter snake.

Reflecting on how Conall spit the toad out two years ago, I realized the reason he didn’t spit out the August 11th toad is because of Chann. Conall knows how quick Chann is to scarf up anything that resembles food. Chann was sure Conall had food in his mouth, pushing his nose right up to Conall’s mouth even when Conall tried to move away, in pain, drooling and frothing.

I am convinced Conall kept the toad in his mouth, and swallowed it, to protect Chann.

Conall is my hero.

He has kept me safe for years with his wildlife alerts. Now he’s also keeping Chann safe.

Feature photo: Chann leading Conall and Finn on a merry chase in the back yard the afternoon of August 11th, Conall fully recovered from the toxic toad.