The Deer

Meet my boys:

Theo and Bodie

Raleigh

Raleigh is a Golden Retriever who still thinks he’s a puppy

Theo is a Golden Doodle who is incredibly smart with a deviant side

Bodie is the baby of the group and is a Black Golden Doodle who (thankfully) still does what people tell him to

The Adventures of Raleigh, Theo, and Bodie: The Deer

Occurred January 11, 2011

Raleigh and Theo have discovered that the electric fence has stopped working and have started going on sojourns whenever they please. So, one day I was watching them and of course I turn my back for two seconds and they’re gone!

Bodie was still here luckily so I got him inside and start getting my boots on while yelling “Raleigh! Theo! COME!!!” at the top of my lungs. As I’ve got one boot on I see Theo trot proudly through the front yard with a large stick in his mouth. I know if I don’t grab him now it will be impossible to get him because he likes to run away and play games when he’s found a toy. So with one boot on I run out into the porch, but something makes me stop...

As Theo gets closer the stick looks less and less like a stick and there is something on his feet and around his mouth and down his front… Then it occurs to me it’s blood and there is a hoof attached to the end of the “stick”. Somewhere they had found the remains of a fully grown and freshly killed deer.

I run out into the snow with only one boot and grab the deer leg out of Theo’s mouth along with some skin and fur and gross stuff he had half swallowed. Deer leg still in hand I grab him and secure him in our laundry room and start calling for Raleigh.

Raleigh finally comes and is not as bad as Theo but still has blood on his feet and around his mouth. When I try to get Raleigh into the laundry room they try to run through the house. This creates a scene of me grabbing Raleigh by the scruff of his neck and Theo by the collar yelling at them at the top of my lungs “WE WILL NEVER SELL THIS HOUSE IF IT LOOKS LIKE THERE’S BEEN A MURDER IN HERE!” Raleigh is whimpering and Theo is trying to escape and Bodie is terrified and goes into his submissive pose where he lies on his back to get you to stop yelling. So now I’m yelling at Raleigh and Theo with “good boy Bodie” mixed in every few seconds.

Okay, now what.

There is blood all over the laundry room (which has white cabinets near the floor), Raleigh and Theo are going nuts, Bodie is terrified, there’s blood all over me, and there’s a DEER LEG on my porch.

I do what anyone would do: I franticly call my mom. But she doesn’t answer. So I more franticly call Lynne. “RALEIGH AND THEO FOUND A DEER, THERES BLOOD, HOW DO I CLEAN THEM? WHAT SOAP CAN I USE THAT WON’T HURT THEM? WHAT WILL BE STRONG ENOUGH TO DISINFECT? DO I NEED TO CALL A VET? DO THEY NEED RABIES SHOTS? DO I NEED A RABIES SHOT?” Lynne is very calm and says “no, you’re fine, just get the dog bath soap for their bodies and the hydrogen peroxide for around their mouths” she says this like its absolutely no big deal. But she reminds me Theo has had an operation recently because he eats underwear and socks and can’t digest anything but dog food so I need to pour the peroxide down his thought to make him throw up.

I get Raleigh outside with a leash and tie him up. Then face Theo, bottle of peroxide in one hand other hand ready to grab him. I slowly go towards him then grab him and wrestle open his mouth which is slimy and slippery from the blood and pour the peroxide down his thought. This is not easy because I can’t tilt his head back or it might go down his wind pipe and he doesn’t like this so he’s thrashing his head back and fourth. I finally get the stuff down his thought and wait for him to throw up.

Ten minutes later Theo is outside tied up with Raleigh and the laundry room has hydrogen peroxide everywhere along with blood and now puke. Yummy.

Lynne had asked me to call her back and describe what he puked up, so I grab a stick (a real stick like made of wood from a tree- no hoofs) and poke through the puke and describe the concoction of skin, blood, fur, and bubbly hydrogen peroxide while trying not to puke myself. Lynne was satisfied and believed he had puked up everything and left me to clean up. 

So the rest of the story involves me gagging every few seconds and several rolls of paper towels and the laundry room getting water and soap poured all over it to add to all the other liquids already there and me scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. Then going outside and scrubbing the dogs, and if you’ve ever owned a Golden Doodle you know they have hair that clumps easily so you can imagine the disaster in trying to get the blood and gunk off him.

So with the house and the dogs clean I took a sigh of relief until I remembered there was still a deer leg on the porch. Although when I looked at it again it wasn’t bloody or as bad as I thought so into a trash bag it went and all the bags of paper towels and the leg went to the garage trash.

…and I took the hydrogen peroxide and Dawn kitchen soap up to the shower. 

The "stick"

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