Campground/picnic area safety!!
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I just wanted to let anybody know who likes to take their Basenji camping about a bad judgement I made camping with my tri color in 1977 that almost cost the dogs life. I went camping in Northern Calif with my tri color Nipper and stayed at a public campground. Well Nipper, 2 years old, was a pretty good dog and never ran off if and when I had her off leash. Their wasn't very many people there so I decided to let Nipper run free and have a good time. Not a good decision! You see people prepare and eat at these picnic tables and guess what? A lot of it drops on the ground. Being the veracious eaters that they are, she ran around all day eating little snacks off the ground, old snacks full of bacteria. I'd look at her and say to myself "what's she eating"?
By 7PM that night I had one very sick puppy, blood coming out of her rectum, throwing up and walking with tail down like an old dog. Yikes!! What do I do out in Nowhere Town, USA?? Well luckily the dog was pretty tough and by early morning I took her into this small town to the one and only vet, who didn't trust my check was good and said "people come up here and write bad checks". They didn't take credit cards back in 77. I convinced him of the emergency and he helped. He had the dog for 3 days. Totally dehydrated too. He said she had terrible bacterial poisioning. He said that dogs that live up there in the country eat garbage all the time and get immune to the bacteria. I was very lucky in my bad judgement.
Please please don't let your little friend run loose in a campgroud or picnic area. There are plenty of good snacks at home.
