I repeat -- Oh, Olive...

Caitlin arrived to pick up Olive last night not 5 minutes after I had put her on the cable outside. Olive greeted her "Girl" with the usual enthusiasm, and then ran over toward the back door where we were headed, and was promptly flipping in circles and kicking her little leg out.

We immediately asked her if she had been stung by a bee, and she answered with continued frantic activity. Inside the house we went, and Caitlin inspected her for a stinger...

It's pretty hard to find a stinger on a dog, much less a primarily black dog.

However, when I took a turn, I got lucky and found the stinger still poking into the pad of her little back foot. We carefully removed it, and Olive was relieved.

For a little bit...

And then she started acting funny...restless, but slow...holding her head up funnily...standing still...I said to Caitlin that we need to keep an eye on her. Something didn't seem right.

About that time, she started hurking...and hurking...and hurking. Caitlin scrambled to get her outside while I cleaned up the messes. Soon other...uh, stuff was trying to...uh, exit her body, and by the time Caitlin brought her back up to the house, Olive was going into shock! Her gums and the inside of her lips were as white as her fur, and she was weak, and not standing well.

The call to our vet yielded their answering machine and the number to the Emergency Vets in Bellingham. Cait called there, and described what was going on and it was recommended that we get there ASAP. Cait wanted to drive (I wonder why?) so I had Olive in a towel on my lap. We had barely got on the road when Olive's eyes went glassy, and she wasn't responding to us. Cait asked, "Is she breathing?" I lifted her limp little head and couldn't tell. "We're going to Kulshan. Somebody might still be there." (All this occurred between 5:20 and 5:35.)

Olive started blinking and stirring, so we knew she was "back". We kept jiggling her and checking her blink reflex. The closer we got to the vet, the more response we were getting...She would move her eyes toward the sound when we said her name, and when we carried her into Kulshan, she actually perked up her ears. Thankfully, they were not gone for the day, and graciously took her in.

Dr. Jordan examined her, and was pleased to tell us that her heart and lungs were sounding good, but she was definitely in shock. They took her to the back and gave her injections of cortisone, and Benadryl. They wanted to monitor her for while (yes, please!). It was merely 5:50 when Cait and I sat in the waiting room, knowing Olive was going to be okay, taking deep breaths and resting our rubber knees.

Olive perked up well, and not long after 6 o'clock, we were on our way home -- with instructions on how to administer Benadryl should she continue to need it through the night, and the suggestion that Olive may need to have an epi-pen with her because it was a pretty serious reaction.

What? We have a dog that needs an epi-pen...on a farm where there are 80 hives of bees in residence for one month of the year...

This is going to be fun.

We've done it before...Dillon had an epi-pen with him after a number of increasingly severe bee sting reactions. Fortunately, he could tell us when he had been stung...and where...and he was smart enough not to chase the bees...Can't say the same for Olive.

But at least we know that she has our Number One Dog Rule down: Don't die!