A Close Call

This post has it's origins in an e-mail I sent to Steve, Libby, and Matt last Monday night. I have updated it, added some pictures that I took Tuesday evening, and included Libby's reply that tells a similar story.

I had a close call yesterday. In the afternoon I took the dogs hiking on the Jesusita Trail - the one I blogged about a few days ago. The dogs were off-leash which isn't an issue usually on this trail. There's no requirement for it and have never had a problem.

Early on the trail there is a stretch that is very narrow, cuts into the side of the hill, and has a vertical drop to the creek on the other side. When we got there we met a fellow coming down the trail who had the biggest male black lab I have ever seen, on leash. He said, "I'll hold him and you go on by."

So we did. Maggie is usually very aggressive towards other dogs. She weighs almost 80 herself and was dwarfed by this guy. She wanted nothing to do with him, shot right by and Sadie followed. Then Sadie turned around and went back to the big lab. I turned to call her back and saw as the lab threatened her and she panicked, lost her footing and went over the side. [She went over about where the stump is in the lower left area of the picture]

I know it's a cliche, but she did look like she was falling in slow motion, falling on her side and spinning as her legs were still working frantically. It seemed to take forever for her to land. With the undercut of the bank I couldn't see her hit clearly.

I ran frantically down the trail to get to a point where the bank was low enough that I could scramble down to the creek bottom. Maggie ran ahead of me, every bit as traumatized as I was. I found later she scraped her legs sliding down the bank with me. There was a bend in the creek and I still couldn't see Sadie. I splashed up the creek, the last bit through a pool that was almost waist deep. When I got there I could hear her cry, but it wasn't a pain yelp, and sounded more like fear.

When I got to her she was huddled on the small beach at the base of the bank, which was made of crumbled pieces of shale. She was obviously terrified and wet but I couldn't tell if she was injured. I grabbed her, hugged her and started feeling her legs. They seemed all right, and I started feeling along her ribs. No obvious problems, no yelps of pain. I looked up and could tell she had fallen at least ten, maybe twelve feet. [After revisiting the scene, it's really more like 18 - 20 feet]

I picked her up, and carried her back through the deep pool, to the shallows where Maggie was anxiously waiting. She had been too afraid to go in the deep water - she's not a good swimmer. Sadie seemed to calm some more when she saw Maggie. When I put her down, it didn't take her more than a minute to collect herself and start prancing around and looking at me with that, "Aren't we going back to the trail?" look.

She was exhausted and obviously a little sore last night, but seems to be okay. All I can figure is that the rotten shale beach had a lot of give, plus it was sloping at an angle from the base of the bank. So she hit an angled surface with a lot of give and then rolled into the water.

The fellow with the big lab, to give him credit, tied his dog to a tree and came splashing up the creek to help. He was upset, too. It wasn't his fault, or his dog's. My fault I didn't grab my dogs and let him come by us.

I woke at 2:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, brooding about it. I got up and got Sadie out of her crate where she sleeps in the kitchen. We sat on the couch and she slept with her head in my lap for the rest of the night.

Sadie wasn't her usual energetic self this morning, but did seem okay other than that. I called our vet and tried to get her in for an exam today, but the soonest they would see her is tomorrow afternoon. I went by the house at lunch and she was her usual run and try to jump up on me (bad dog!) self. Connie thinks she's doing well enough that we don't need to take her to the vet.

Here's Libby's reply.

Hi Reid --
I would take her into the vet anyway, just for your peace of mind to make
sure she is only bruised and rattled which is probably the case if she is
doing as well as she is. And go out and buy a big bottle of gin or whatever
for yourself.

One time when we were leading an Outward Bound course in the Escalante area,
we had a nightmare similar to yours. I think you know the area, at least a
bit. We started down Hall's Creek with the intention of crossing over the
Waterpocket Fold into the top of Stevens Canyon, and then coming out Coyote
Gulch. We had 18 students and four instructors, one of whom had a wonderful
dog named Shana. AS we entered Steve's Canyon from the top, we started
encountering a series of cliffs that required rappeling...some weren't too
high -- 50 - 75 feet; the problem was how to get Shana down. So we put her
into a nylon sleeping bag liner and lowered her down by rope, her owner Wick
at the bottom. We did that for three rappels and everything went fine, and
Shana, though a bit dubious, was co-operating. Finally we came to a cliff
that was slanted, not overhanging, but about 125 feet. We put Shana into the
bag liner and started lowering her...when she got about half way down, we
saw the knot starting to come undone, and Shana fell, in the liner, the rest
of the way, landing on a sand slope at the bottom. We were sure she was
dead. Wick got her out of the bag and she was hardly moving. We made camp
then and there, and got her as comfortable as we could -- she drank, but
didn't really want to eat. We nervously got up in the morning, and Shana
actually stood up and walked around. We rested another half day, and then
Wick alternately carried her and let her walk to the next camp. That night
she ate. The next day she was stiff but walked by herself most of the day,
and ate a good dinner. She lived another 6 years. We had to put her in the
bag again when we reached the Escalante River, which was in full flood -- we
were caught in the worst series of storms in 100 years on that trip, and we
had to do a Tyrolean Traverse across the river with all the students and
gear. Shana actually got into the bag liner again, shaking like a leaf --
before she got in she tried to swim the river but figured out that it would
be too much, so came back up and let us put her in the bag.
Our dogs make our hair turn white...

Libby

I did take Sadie to the vet and he gave her a clean bill of health. She's back to her normal energetic self.