Molly vs Porcupine

Yesterday evening we left to drop Anna off at gymnastics and pick Kindra up from volleyball. We stopped by Trigs on the way home for some milk. As we were coming down the driveway, I thought there was a big fluffy cat in the driveway...as we got closer we could see it was a big porcupine! We were all staring out the windows, watching the porcupine make it's way (very slowly...) across the driveway. Just as it stepped onto the ground, and I started to pull forward, here came Molly! I guess she'd heard us and came out to greet us, but when she sniffed that porcupine she ran straight into harm's way! Well, I quickly drove to the house and got the little ones out of the car because I knew Molly would need some attention when she got back to the house. Just as we got Noah and Amaya out of the car, here came Molly, whimpering and crying. It was pitiful. The left side of her face was covered in quills, even her nose and inside her mouth. Her left shoulder was covered, and she had some on her paw. I pulled out a couple of the quills, but then Kindra took over so I could go inside and call the veterinarian. Amazingly, Kindra was able to remove more than half the quills before Molly was in too much pain. At that point Molly started nipping at Kindra, so we loaded her up and headed to the on call vet's office. Pavan met us there. They sedated Molly and removed the rest of the quills, ouch! She was still pretty dopey last night, but is much better today. She's just laying around resting, and you can tell the left side of her face is swollen. She is walking with a limp, and isn't eating much, but I would imagine she'll be sore for a few days. Hopefully next time she meets a porcupine, she'll run the other direction!

The pictures were taken as we loaded her into the car to head to the vet. There weren't many quills remaining at that point, but some of them were very deep. I took some pictures with my 35mm camera as Kindra was removing some of the quills, I'll post them online as soon as I get that roll developed. Poor Molly!

Yet another adventure in the Northwoods! Oh, did I mention she came home smelling like a skunk too? Geez, she's been having entirely too much fun lately!

More later,

Rebecca