The Will to Live

"She has a tremendous will to live." That's what Dr. Michael Randall of the Animal Health Center in Madison, Miss., said recently about our 8-year-old greyhound, Missy, a "rescued" racer who miraculously is alive today even though she was impaled for some 30 minutes on an 8-inch spike atop our wrought iron fence. We didn't see it happen, but here's our best guess: Missy loves to chase squirrels. She usually "trees" them, then jumps up with her front paws on the trunk of the tree. On the morning of April 14, I let her out the back door of the house. Our guess is that she chased a squirrel up a tree near the 4-foot high fence, jumped at the tree and either missed it or bounced off it and somehow landed on top of the fence. Judging by her wounds, Dr. Randall thinks she struggled to get off the fence and nearly made it over before the rod pierced her stomach, then slowly pushed through her body. About 10 minutes after I let her out, I heard Missy crying and moaning, so I went outside to see what was going on and was shocked to find her hanging on our fence, howling and crying. Her front paws were on the ground on the outside of the fence. Her back legs were sticking up in the air. The fence rod pierced her abdomen and exited her back right next to her tail. She was writhing and crying, scratching and whining, trying to get off that wicked spike! I ran inside and called the Animal Health Center and told them that Missy was dying and we needed help. Then I ran back outside, jumped over the fence and grabbed onto Missy's head and front legs and held her as tightly as I could to keep her from thrashing around. As I held her and she went into shock, I really didn't think she would make it. After 20 minutes (it seemed like an hour!), Dr. Randall and Jeff White, the manager of the Animal Health Center's hospital, arrived. Dr. Randall gave Missy a shot to sedate her. We used a hacksaw to cut the spear off the top of the fence spike, then lifted Missy off the fence. On the ride to the Animal Health Center, Missy's heart stopped. Dr. Randall revived her. After three hours of surgery, Dr. Randall told us that it looked like Missy would make it. Unbelievably, the spike damaged only her intestines (he removed 11 inches). It didn't hit any other organs or her spine! After a week, we brought Missy home. She's been back once to have her wounds resutured. They're still not healed and you never know what complications might arise, but as of today she's alive and recovering, thanks to the wonderful care she received from Michael Randall, Jeff White and all the other doctors and employees of the Animal Health Center -- plus her "tremendous will to live." As a footnote, we suggest that anybody with large dogs (or children who love to climb trees, jump on trampolines or even climb fences) should really think about what they're doing before building a fence like we had. Many subdivisions have covenants governing what type and size of fence you can build. We live on a golf course and our covenants call for wrought iron fences, 4-feet high. We looked at the options available and chose the kind that many others in our neighborhood have, spikes with decorative spears. Never in a million years did we envision something like that happening to Missy. After the incident, we had a solid bar affixed to the top of the fence. You can see the "new" fence behind Missy and me in the attached photo.

Rusty and Cindy H.
Madison, MS