Teeming with Maggots...

So... I have to say, I have never quite understood the meaning of the term "teeming with maggots".  I get it now.

This is not, perhaps, the best content with which to start out this blogging experiment... but then again, given that I am a born and raised country girl, living the lifestyle despite her residence in "Urbania," with the company of her sheep chasing, horse terrorizing, cat demonizing farm dog, perhaps it is the perfect content.  But I would like to disclaim that this is not going to be typical content.

DISCLAIMER: Generally, blog will feature much more normal content! Sheep and dogs and...horses... and... weird stuff we do.  Not generally disgusting.  Promise!

DISCLAIMER 2: Kind of disgusting, farm related content coming right up.  Because only on a farm.......

Tonight, after our agility class (Perhaps I'll blog about it tomorrow), I headed to the barn to drop off my camera so J can video two sale horses schooling rounds at Whitemud (Oddly, I'm going to try and get the afternoon off to go with. Save us some extra video/pictures at home if I can go too).

I left straight from class, and brought Lex along.  Rather than leave her in the car... I brought her in.  Given that there was a lesson in progress, I felt it wise to borrow one of the resident dog's crates and stuff her in there before heading to the arena, rather than have non-resident dog flaunted to all boarders/lessoners.

So I stuff Lex in - literally.  She whined, and then howled, which is abnormal for her, but I figured she was just being clingy - because she gets like that sometimes.  Then she was quiet.  All seemed good.  I head to arena.

40 or so minutes later, I'm ready to collect my dawg and head for home.  I open crate.  Dog rocket-launches at me faster than a speeding bullet.  I stuff her back in her collar, and wonder at that odd smell coming from her.  "Lex, did you do something bad in Doodles' crate?"

It should be note that she has never,  not once,  pooped in a crate.  So I wasn't too concerned, but was curious about the oddity that was her scent.  I looked in the crate and peered closely at an abnormality.  Poo?  Nope, doesn't really look like poo... It looks like... Ruh Roh.

I call J over - hey, looks like there's something dead in here!   She looks in... Yup, something dead alright.

Five or so days ago, R's teenage boys were out shooting gophers.  Doodles enjoys retrieving, despite being a herding breed, NOT a retrieving breed...and she kept a treasure sequestered carefully in her crate.  Unknown to us hapless human-folk, of course.

And I, being fairly moronic at times, figured I should see just. how. bad. my dog smelled.  So I stuff my nose in her fur.  Somehow my stomach stayed where it belonged, but it took work.  I won't be doing that again.

And all I can say there, is Thanks God for wash racks.  They are not just useful for hosing off a hot, sweaty horse, or bathing muddy ones.  They are equally useful for bathing rotting-gopher smell out of dogs.   Lex was thoroughly unimpressed, and I was just thrilled that, hopefully, when she dried she'd smell like dog and shampoo instead of something a dog drug in.   But truly, my dog was clean(ish), she wasn't going to bring her "the rotting dead" smell into my car, and I was happy again.

At least for five or so minutes.... See...after all this, J disposed of the gopher, and the blanket in the crate...and I helped her take it apart so she could rinse it...and for some reason it never crossed my mind prior to this vision, but it was CRAWLING with maggots.  Teeming.  It was TEEMING with maggots.  Yup, I get it now.  My skin is still crawling.  We rinsed, bleached, and left the crate to soak in bleach and virkon overnight.  Doodles got a bath too.  Lex, well, is lucky she didn't get two more.  And I will never forget that 5-days-dead = definitely maggots.

I guess I should brush her out - a third time - and then  triple check her - a third time - for maggots before we go to bed.  Ohhh, YUCK. My psyche can't take this!  I am very hard to gross out.  I was marginally grossed out before the maggots.

And this, I suppose, is the end of the first seven months with Lex, and the beginning of the next 10 or so odd years (or more, hopefully more!) of what I think perhaps I will call: Life with Lex.