The porcupine and Ali

Summer, a time of fun, camping and trekking into the wilderness...

Do you have a dog?  Does the dog like to play outside in the fresh air?  Do they listen to you when you call or tell them to do something?  Mine too, or so we thought.

My husband and I used to like to go out into the bush and go exploring and camping on our time off.  We had a few days off and decided it was time for a camping trip.  We had gotten all the appropriate garb together for the camping trip.  Everything into the truck, clothes, tent, camp stove, extra wood(dry of course), sleeping bags, food, rope, tarps, shovel and tools.  We were off for our adventure.

We set off for the Liard river.  Now at this time of year, late spring, the rivers are slightly swollen, and hard to cross in the pickup truck.  We found an area of the river that was not as deep and proceeded to cross without any problem.  When across, we found a great area that had a small clearing just big enough for our tent.  Great because you could put a tarp up by tying it to the trees, making a weather block to stop rain and wind that might happen.  Camp gear was set up.  Sleeping gear put in the tent and we were off on our adventure.

Now we had a great Ford F-150.  It was set up for bush travel, so it was a lot higher off the ground than a usual truck.  We started the climb over the huge boulders and crevices that were all over the road to the copper mine.  Once over that area, the going was easy on a road that had been created for the moving of ore from the mine.  Don't get me wrong, this was not a well travelled road or highway, it was a dirt road, and I use the term road loosely.  Up and down hills and over more smaller rocks.  All in all the road was pretty good.  It only shook your guts up a little, better than the ones we had to travel to go to work at times.  Fun for the most part.

On the way up to the next river crossing, we came upon the most beautiful beaver dam.  It had caused the water to back up and fill a small area of marshy land with a great fishing hole.  On went the gum boots and off we went to fly fish for the big one, ya right.   Ali, our Aerdale was having a ball.  Sniff here, sniff there, then she was gone.  She wandered off all the time, but always came back when she had gotten tired of what she was chasing.

We caught a bunch of small trout, which we planned on cleaning and cooking for dinner that night.  It was a great afternoon.  Sunny and warm.  Calm, or so we thought.

Out of the bush comes Ali, crying and howling at the top of her lungs.  We thought maybe something was chasing her at the speed she was moving.  Up into the truck she jumped and laid down.  What is the matter.  We are looking around, moving rather quickly, thinking something is coming.   Nothing came out after her so, we look into the back of the truck to see Ali with her nose and mouth covered in Porcupine quills, and I mean covered.  There was not even a small area of her face that did not have quills in it.  She was lucky and did not have any in her eyes, close but not in them.   She got a little to close to what she had found and the porcupine let her know about it by depositing all of the quills in her face.  She just laid in the back of the truck looking at us with this please help me look.

Now comes the hard part.  Ali moved to the edge of the truck tailgate and let her face hang over.  My husband got out the pliers and began slowly trying to remove the quills.  Ali laid there with me holding her for the whole procedure without so much as a whimper.  We removed all the quills we could find.  She even had them in her mouth.  We took some cold water and poured it over the area to clean it once we were done.  She was not happy about the cold water, but let us pour it over the sore areas.  She just looked with her sad little eyes, as if to say thankyou. 

We did find one more tiny quill about a week later, that had lodged itself in her gum/corner of the mouth.  It had become infected and we pulled it out and treated the area until it healed.   Now Ali was a great dog.  She was bred for hunting bear, not procupines.   To think back now, it is funny how all of it happened, but at the time not so much.  I will never forget Ali's day with the porcupine.