I won’t leave you in suspense, Sara is alive.  But boy oh boy, I was scared.  She is never outside without supervision.  Usually the slider is open and we keep an eye on her, and that’s only mid morning to mid afternoon.  She’s never out morning or evening unless someone is outside with her.  The coyotes are thick.  Two dogs have been pulled through the wrought iron fence by coyotes in our neighborhood.  One didn’t survive and the other was rescued.  Our neighbor jumped over the fence, scared the shit out of the coyote and the coyote dropped their little dog, Sascha.

At first I didn’t realize she got bit, the dang Puggle never makes a noise.  I thought I got her out of harm’s way.  The rattler was on our mat outside of the sliding glass door in our kitchen.  Sara spotted it and was getting ready to play with it.  I scooped her up and jumped over the rattler, put her leash on, attached it to the door handle leading to the garage, and put her in the garage.

Adrenaline was pumping through my veins.  I grabbed the shovel and killed the rattler, then took a picture and tossed it in the garbage.  I texted the pic to Amelia and our neighbor.  Then went to the garage to get Sara and bring her out to the blood.  She was acting strange, really subdued, and not right.  That’s when I noticed the blood on her nose, that damn rattler bit her!

The rest was a complete blur. We hauled ass to the vet’s.  I ran in with her in my arms, looking like a madman.  They immediately responded like the emergency it was.  One of the girls finally comes out to tell me she’s progressing well.  Half an hour later, the vet comes out and says, “Hey I recognize you, you’re the Fins guy!  Sara is going to be fine, it’s just going to be a little longer until the IV drips all the Antivenin into her.”  Then the vet comes back and shows me his Fins comeback cup.  “I use this all the time, and tell everyone that these were the best fish tacos ever.”

It was like some crazy surreal dream.  Tonight we were going to drive to Yuma to start our Thanksgiving trip, but not now.  It doesn’t matter, our girl is alive, we can head out tomorrow or even Sunday.  We’ll see how she’s doing tomorrow.

Remember, it’s not polite to ask how much it cost…

Dead.

Caged, IV’d, drugged, but alive.

Swollen face, you can really tell between her eyes.

Finally sleeping.