Our wonderful corgi-cross Miss Porkchop (aka Pork “Danger” Chop on Instagram) had a terrible experience with a buck in our Gordon Head back yard this week. Porkchop when out to do her business around 6:30 AM on Tuesday in semi-darkness. To my surprise, less than 20 seconds after I let her outside I heard a loud yelp and then crying as she scrambled up our deck stairs to get back into the house. She was shaking and whimpering in our kitchen when I noticed the blood dripping on the kitchen floor.

Porkchop had unfortunately startled a buck in our back yard, who was probably sheltering from the rain under one of our trees. Unfortunately, Porkchop is getting older (we’re not sure how old as she was a stray rescue from Saskatchewan), and her eyesight is not very good, along with poor hearing, so instead of barking at the “intruder” in our back yard, we suspect she surprised a more aggressive than a normal buck, because of rutting (or mating) season.

Once Porkchop was in the house my partner Heather, a registered nurse, checked Porkchop out and realized how deep the gash in Porchop’s rump was. We called the vet as soon as they opened and by noon she was under general anesthesia to insert a drain tube, and stitch up her wound. As I write this five days later, the drain tube is out and she is recovering well.

If you’d like to see more pictures of Porkchop, including additional information about deer from a conservation officer, here is a link to the CBC news article written by my high school classmate Yvette Brend titled, Dog jabbed by buck’s antler a painful reminder of rutting season. Below is a Yvette’s CBC Yvette’s CBC Radio news report about Porkchop with some fun commentary by the morning crew: