Comments | mirtlemist: Of deer and men

mirtlemist

Of deer and men

Dec 29, 2009 09:41

Yesterday, a lady of the awesomely nice variety called in tears to tell us there was a small three-point buck in their back yard. She said it had a hurt paw and had been lying down, off and on, for several hours ( Read more... )

Comments 6

random commenter rowanda380 December 29 2009, 17:38:23 UTC

That is sad to hear that there is nothing to be done, helpiung would hurt more...but man just watching, that seriously has to be tough. You are a saint for talking her through what must have been heartbreaking.

Re: random commenter mirtlemist December 29 2009, 18:24:32 UTC

I felt more like a grinch than a saint, basically telling her neither I nor anyone else could help. She hung up in tears, but at least there was still a tiny bit of action she could take. Just putting out a little food and water might make the difference for the poor beast, at least in this instance.

We watched a young doe with a ghastly compound fracture of her left foreleg hobble around our woods for weeks one year. Like you said, it was seriously tough to just watch her, but we knew trying to chase her down and dart her would have caused so much more damage...I shudder to think. She did eventually heal (although she always walked with an atrocious limp) and even had a fawn the following spring.

Re: random commenter rowanda380 December 29 2009, 18:33:45 UTC

You can't blame yourself for following the law, you gave her hope that it could get better, and who knows, maybe the poor thing will.

Re: random commenter mirtlemist December 29 2009, 18:42:27 UTC

I added her to my very long list of animals we're keeping our fingers crossed for :) Especially in this cold, cold weather. If you have a few fingers to spare, please feel free to add your thoughts :)

Thread 5

(The comment has been removed)

mirtlemist December 30 2009, 16:00:29 UTC

I think the hardest part of all is not so much the dealing with animals; it's trying to help people understand that we're not the enemy. There are so many restrictions and rules we're obliged to follow - rules that we didn't create - but part of my job is to pass them along. I totally hate that part, especially knowing the tendency is to want to shoot the messenger.