Tick Bite - 12/04/2012

Doctor and Patient

GABBY - Today was an incredibly beautiful day in the Southern Drakensbergs, bringing an abundance of sunshine and a clear, blue sky.  We checked everyone out in the morning and answered a few phone calls.  One such call was an old couple wanting to go on a Lesotho trip the very next day.  That meant a whole lot of extra work on our behalf.  There is a lot to be done before a Lesotho trip and it’s hard to get everything together in 2 days let alone 1.  We were also without Steve, so it was totally up to us to get the trip out smoothly.  I alerted the Zulu staff about the trip and sped off with Allaister to Spar to stock up and make the food preparations.  Meanwhile back at the farm, Ben was dealing with a Smeagal crisis.  Eric had come up to the backpackers and told Ben she wasn’t feeling well.  Ben found her lying underneath the Tack Room, short of breath.  He gave Cecily, an American woman who used to work at Khotso, a call and she diagnosed Smeagal over the phone as having Billary.  Billary is similar to tick bite fever, or Lyme’s Disease, but for dogs.  Once the disease has taken hold it will kill the animal by the next day unless they are given the proper shot.  While Ben was dealing with all of the issues at home, I bought all of the food and made our way back to the farm.  Allaister and I drove up to all of the staff including Ben standing around the Tack Room.  He was super worried about Smeagal and told us that we needed to go back into Underberg to retrieve the shot from the vet.  Allaister took his grand old time getting ready to leave again, making himself a melted cheese sandwich and reading the paper.  Ben was really freaked out, which was certainly unusual.  Cecily had scared him a bit by threatening Smeagal’s death without the shot and how Steve would react if anything happened to his beloved sheep dog.  No vet would touch Smeagal unless she was sedated because of how badly she handles shots.  By badly handling, I mean she will assuredly bite anyone who attempts to give her a shot, put a muzzle on her, or attempt a flea collar.  Finally Allaister got a move on, went to town, bought the shot and brought it back.  He was a bit drunk and had a bad-ass cowboy manner about him as he told us he was going to give Smeagal her shot without a muzzle.  Ben and I walked with him down to the Tack Room and watched him play veterinarian with Smeagal’s life.  As he readied the needle, Ben and I ran around the other side of the Tack Room and hid inside while he put the shot in the fat of her behind.  She barely even stirred, thank God, so Allaister luckily left the scene unscathed.  The fact that she barely moved was also unsettling, meaning she was seriously down for the count.  Ben spent the rest of the day catering to Smeagal, bringing her water and different raw meat dishes.

Before sunset, Ben and I decided to hike to the top of the closest foothill to get a bit of exercise and fresh air.  It took us about 5-10 minutes, but it was a straight-up heart pumper.  We headed down the mountain, checked the old German couple in who were going on the Lesotho trip the next day, and headed up to Steve’s house.  I attempted to make a white wine cream sauce with pasta, but it wasn’t the tastiest.  I’m glad it was just being served to Ben and me. He ate it up and said it was delicious despite how he really may have felt about it.  We watched Storage Wars before cuddling with Karoo in the top house.