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by Nate & Kate of Stray Dog Sailing
In the months leading up to our cast off date, we had several lengthy discussions with medical professionals about what supplies, training, and resources we should bring on the boat in case of an emergency with one of our two dogs. Knowing that our intent was to stay in remote locations where we might not have the ability to call for help, we wanted to be as prepared as possible in the event our pets had an accident. We were lucky that in our 18 month trip our two-legged crew were relatively accident-free. Our four-legged crew, well that’s a slightly different story… Below are three slightly less common medical items we won’t go to sea without when traveling with pets and the stories behind them.
About 5 months into the trip on a routine morning dog walk, one of our dogs started sneezing profusely after smelling a plant. The sneezing quickly turned to coughing which turned to gagging and choking by the time we made it back to the boat. Nate grabbed his phone, immediately found an emergency vet and arranged a Lyft while I turned the medicine cabinet and first aid kits upside down in search of allergy medicine. Fortunately, one of our kits had one single-use packet which we quickly administered on the dinghy ride back to shore. Within 15 minutes his breathing had calmed and by the time we saw the vet he was basically back to normal. The vet confirmed that he’d likely had an allergic reaction to something and to monitor him.
Allergic reactions are no joke and can happen in the most mundane situations. Benadryl and other allergy medicine can make a dangerous and scary situation a whole lot better and buy time to get additional help.
While I wouldn’t call us helicopter dog parents, we are pretty protective of them and do our best to give them a safe environment. That being said, dogs will be dogs and we are human and make mistakes. To our horror, one evening we discovered our hound dog had gotten ahold of a bottle of muscle relaxers that we had left on the counter, eaten the top off and scattered them around the settee. Some quick addition left us thinking it was possible she had consumed one or two of them. Erring on the side of caution, we called poison control who instructed us to induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide. Within 5 minutes our hound had lost her dinner and any relaxation she may have gained but after 15 minutes she was right as rain with no ill effects thanks to having the right supplies handy.
A fun day at the beach on a deserted island turned a little scary when our hound (there’s a pattern here) started howling in her “help me” howl. Obviously concerned by the tone and the fact she was not returning when called, we quickly tracked her down. Kip was standing on a mangrove tree in the middle of a tidal swamp. At first we thought that she was “stuck” in the mangrove tree so we thought “No big deal, we will just come over there and carry her back.” That is when we realized the swamp was FULL of jellyfish. Not going to lie, I dog mom panicked and jumped into the swamp anyway knowing that they weren’t lethal and she wasn’t going to get out of there unless I went to get her. I got stung getting her out, and she must have gotten stung on her way in. While the stings weren’t dangerous we were both happy to have sting relief to rub our legs to ease the discomfort.
Gauze, compression wraps, and liquid bandage. Our hound dog (you see the pattern right?) once sliced open a paw running on the beach during a well earned post passage romp. I’m not talking about a paper cut, I’m talking about a pretty significant gash that bled heavily. Once we got her back to the boat we were able to clean it up and stop the bleeding which took a few hours. It was a scary and tense event made worse by the fact that we were pretty isolated from civilization. We had liquid bandage in our first aid kit, but given the fact that the cut was on her pad and there was a higher risk of infection because the cut occurred in salt water we opted for gauze and tape so we could keep the wound clean. We FaceTimed my DNP sister to get her opinion on whether she needed stitches or not. She suggested that as long as we could keep it from bleeding and clean we were probably ok. This was great news because we were an overnight sail away from any sort of vet treatment. We continued to monitor it and by the time we made it to the next populated port the bleeding had stopped and the wound was beginning to heal with no sign of infection.
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