On our way to see Pauly the porcupine.
A porcupine showing off the latest in pain inducing coiffures.
Four of the little gifts Pauly left Nella. The dark end is the business end.
Late this afternoon I took the dogs out for their last walk of the day, and we decided to do a short loop up through the woods. When we were 20 yards or so from where the trail runs into the neighbors gravel road before looping back into the woods, the dogs took off in a flash and accosted something on the road. I called them back and went up to investigate. By the time I got to the road, a large porcupine had scrambled into the treeline on the other side and was busy climbing out of reach. The porcupine climbed a good 30 feet up the tree before stopping. Now safe from the porcupine's quills, the dogs barked and jumped up on the tree, ready to tear the porcupine limb from limb (as long as the porcupine stayed up the tree with his rather painful defensive mechanism). In the initial encounter Nella managed to collect a half dozen quills which I pulled out before heading home. The quills are not only sharp and numerous, they are barbed at the end, so pulling them takes a little effort. Nella was very brave and let me jerk them out without so much as a whimper. The good news in all of this? It wasn't a skunk we ran into.
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