The Sting

Right now Archer is feeling very sorry for himself. During our walk this morning while he was having a marvelous time bounding through the grass he, or one of the other dogs, ran through and upset a blackjacket wasp nest. Ever seen one? No? I hadn't either until today. They are huge, get angry easily and are persistent. We learned this the hard way.

The dogs were happily chasing each other through the field off to my left and I had just made the decision to head back home when Archer threw himself into the grass sideways and then shot in front of me in an absolute fit of panic. All I saw were three large dark passengers on his back and without thinking I ran toward him, grabbed his collar and with my arm (which was fortunately covered in my dog walking coat) and swept them off his back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Leleoo and Raimi doing what Archer was doing so I let Archer go, grabbed Raimi and swept his dark passengers away also. Then I yelled, "RUN!" And we ran.

Once I figured we were clear of the danger zone I checked Leeloo who fortunately seemed to escape the worst of the attack. Archer was busy throwing himself in the grass to try and stop the pain when Raimi suddenly yelped and started shaking his head and pawing at it. I saw one wasp fly up and that was it. We ran again.

Archer by this time was in a very sorry state. He had stings welting up on his body, he was throwing himself in the grass every few feet, tail tucked and extremely distraught. I knew I had to get him home ASAP. I put him on lead all the way back because he kept disappearing into the bushes to scrape himself against the foliage to ease the pain. I didn't want him to go in there and refuse to come out which is what he started to do, so although every few feet he tried to drag me into the brush, I pulled him back out again.

Once home I prepared breakfast for the other three dogs and got the Afterbite ready for Archer. I also gave him some anti-histamine as a pre-emptive strike against an allergic reaction to the stings. He didn't get breakfast because sometimes stings can upset their tummy and I didn't want to end up cleaning up his barf later. Here he is drinking out of the toilet(not sure why he insists on this as there is ample fresh water available) and you can see three large stings on his back. Those are three of 8 total. They are swollen and covered in Afterbite.

Raimi seems to have escaped with only three stings and Leeloo has one small one, she was behind everyone else on the run and possibly saw what was happening and avoided the area in time. I don't blame the wasps since they are just living out their little wasp lives when suddenly a great idiotic Ridgeback smashes right through their livingroom. It would make anyone mad right? We will just have to avoid the area in the future and respect that when we are out on a walk, we are never the only ones there.