Why the Dachsie Wears no Collar

Normally Miss Daisy sports a little red collar, quite generic but it serves. Mack's is blue and smaller, but of similar ilk.

We have no fear of gender labeling here. Boys is boys and girls is girls and we know it and deal with it. And, hey, our girls fix trucks and drive tractors and the boys is good cooks and do their own laundry when needed, so it works for us.

Anyhow, yesterday, along about the middle, Daisy started snorking and horking and making bad noises. At first I didn't think much of it. Dachshunds are big on unappealing sounds and she is a pro.

Then I looked at her. OMG, she was puffed up like a Shar Pei! Her face was fat and wrinkled to nearly melon-size and her whole body resembled an overstuffed sausage.

Of course, no one was home but Jade, Peggy, and me, and the vehicles were all absent on errands.

Thank goodness for cell phones. Jade called Liz and I called Becky and we sent them both in search of children's Benadryl. Liz found it first.

By the time they made it home I had to remove her collar....she was that swollen.

The medicine did the trick though and in a couple of hours she was able to enthusiastically eat her dinner.

This morning she is still making a few funky noises so I guess I will give her another dose, and I think she will be fine in a couple of days, but dang!!! 

That was not fun.

Judging by the welt on the side of her muzzle after the swelling receded, I think she was stung by a wasp or hornet. There was a live one swilling around in the pups' water bowl earlier and I'll bet she was the culprit. I gave her a swirly in the kitchen sink before I noticed poor Daisy's distress.

We are awash in a tide of them! They come inside on the laundry, creep in through cracks, and are everywhere we look or step. I use a W when I think about the hornets of the clan and despise them roundly.