A day turned upside down

What a day....I'm still trembling as I write this.....

I woke up this morning to a beautiful blue sky and a day that promised to be warm. Sure enough, by lunch time we didn't even need jackets. After our chores were done we all had to go chop and stack wood outside because we were beginning to get low on our already chopped stuff. I had fun doing the work, it was a lovely day, I was with my family and I was able to use my left hand. when we finished that, our goofy dog tried to catch a stick that somebody threw him but instead ended up biting his tongue really hard. Emily grossed out when she saw blood spurt wildly out of Copper's mouth and then grossed out even more when she saw what I did. :) I'm hoping to be a vet someday so things like this don't make me queasy; I scooped up a small bit of dirt, then put it over the bleeding area while firmly holding onto his tongue. Copper was not at all pleased with this and tried to wiggle away but I made sure I held on. After a couple minutes the bleeding had slowed, so I then took him down to our creek where the ice cold water finished the staunching. "Well, I thought, That's enough excitement for one day." Oh if only I had known what was going to happen next.....

After the bleeding tongue episode my sisters and I decided to relax a little by taking a hike up in the 98 acres. At first we were having a perfectly glorious time, and who wouldn't on a day like today? when we reached a certain spot we stopped for a while to let Emily play around with her camera. Copper ran ahead a few feet of us and promptly began digging; He always digs when we come up here so I didn't pay any attention to him.....

A few minutes later we heard the most hideous, blood-curdling, noise. Sounding like something between a rabid dog and.....??? I looked over to where copper was and could see him madly thrashing around and the noise we heard was him. I rushed over to where he was but couldn't quite tell what was wrong. I thought perhaps he finally got a rodent or something so I raised my hiking stick and hit the "thing". Copper yelped again but stopped moving for a second. When I saw what the "thing" was I dropped my stick in utter horror. A trap. Yes, my poor lovable dog had his paw stuck in a hunters trap. Copper began his unearthly shrieking again right as I began screaming to the girls. "It's a trap! It's a trap! Go get Chris! Run!" Emily ran as fast as she could down the hill while Megan stayed with me. Blood was dripping from Copper's mouth because he kept on biting the trap and his paw was bleeding profusely as well. I tried to calm him but in his pain he was untouchable. So I prayed with all my might while waiting for Chris to come. Since we were on a high hill, his haunting cries echoed over, and over throughout the valley.

Megan ran down the hill a few minutes later because we could hear mom calling us. I stayed behind with Copper. A few more minutes later Chris arrived.....and slung over his shoulder was a gun..... I stood up slowly, every inch of me was trembling. "You're going to shoot him?" I asked, my voice barely audible. I had been crying throughout all of this and seeing my brother with a gun was just too much for me. " You're not going to shoot my dog!" I cried. I wasn't going to let my dog have an ending like this. Chris looked at me with that look that clearly said: Calm down would ya!?" He looked at Copper and then kneeled down, did something and the next thing I knew, my dear dog was free and was limping over to me. I began running down the hill, with Copper right in front of me and half way down I met mom on the way.

We got Copper home and then I set about to work. While I didn't have the foggiest as to what to do when Copper was stuck, I knew exactly what to do to help him now. I put him in the bathtub and filled it with a couple of inches of lukewarm water. Added to the water was a handful of Epsom salts and some Tea Tree oil. When the blood was gone I gave a thorough check. No bones were broken but he had a really bad bruise and a lot of skin was badly broken. I rubbed some more Tea Tree oil onto his paw while Emily began preparing a chamomile infusion to help Copper with shock. After his bath, I made a Comfrey poultice and then bound it on his paw. Copper is now resting quietly in our bedroom.

While I was making the poultice Emily and I were talking. As it turns out, Emily couldn't hear what I was screaming in the beginning. She thought for some reason that I was saying "Get the truck! get the truck!" :) So she ran down and told Chris that something had Copper and to get his gun.

We are all forbidden to set foot into the 98 acres now, because that was a recently set trap and most likely there's more. None of us mind, and hopefully Copper will stay out as well. It's going to take a long time before I forget the sound of those terrifying cries of his... the sight of him with blood all over him... and the stench of the hot blood that hung in the air....

But, it's over now and I just need to keep telling myself to not look back.
Sorry this post is sooooo long. I didn't know how to shorten it. :)
What an upside down day.

~Caitlyn