Prickly Neighbor

This porcupine's been hanging around lately eating the new growth on the aspens and honeysuckle around the house. Hopefully there's enough to keep her away from our brake lines.

Warning: the following story involves injury to an animal

My most memorable porcupine story does not include the actual porcupine, but just its quills. It happened at a shelter on the Appalachian Trail called Mad Tom Notch. I was hiking alone, but that night a small group of us had converged on this particular shelter. As the dark was setting in we heard some commotion coming through the woods, and a guy appeared with a small black dog who had his muzzle all pierced through with a bunch of porcupine quills. The dog was clearly in pain and the guy was obviously upset. Some of us bustled around for a bit trying to help, but it quickly became clear that it was no use. We were not going to get those quills out without completely traumatizing that dog. By this time is was completely dark and hiking out to get help wasn’t a safe option. Nothing could be done until morning.

Eventually we all fell asleep in the small lean-to shelter. This was fall in Vermont and the evening was pretty cold, so we just packed in like sardines. Very early in the morning I woke up to find myself face to face with that poor dog, just a matter of inches away. He was asleep with his chin flat on the wooden floor of the shelter and his breath was coming in short, shuddering gasps. I could see blood oozing from around the quills in his nose and making small pools on the floor between us. It has to be the saddest, most pathetic sight I have ever woken to and I will never forget it. I hesitated to get up because it seemed a shame to possibly rouse this dog who was obviously sleeping from pure exhaustion. But, truth be told, I had to get to work in the morning and had a decent hike ahead of me if I was to get there on time. I don’t recall ever learning what happened to that dog in the end.