Jared Lang

Dog's illness makes for scary night

Jared Lang | Highlands Today
Published: December 19, 2012

In my young life, I've had several scary moments. I've gotten stitches in my head on two separate occasions; I've broken my leg, endured my share of "comical" pranks, and even watched some scary movies in the dark. Two weeks ago, I encountered my most horrific episode yet.

On Dec. 6, I arrived home after soccer practice and took a shower as usual. School was long and tiresome, and I decided to take a short nap before starting my homework. I woke up around 8:30, checked my daily planner for the list of homework needing to be done and began working.

At about 9, I heard my dad bring my four-year-old dachshund-terrier mix Payton inside from a short walk. He sat down on the couch and from my room I heard Payton's paws stutter-step then become inaudible as she jumped from the wood floor to the couch. Just a few minutes later I heard my dad repeating Payton's name, each time louder than before.

I rushed out to the living room and saw my dad huddled over our dog, yelling into her ears and patting her back. Upon looking at Payton, I realized that she was not alright. Her eyes were half-way open, turning red and not following any of our frantic movements.

She was lying on her stomach, shaking slightly, and hadn't taken a breath since I had run out of my room. It still hadn't hit me what might be happening and I joined my dad in pinching her, yelling at her, and doing anything else I could think of to snap her out of her trance.

After almost 20 seconds of futile action, my dad picked Payton up off the couch and put her on the floor, hoping she would come to when she needed to catch herself. When he let her go, her legs went limp and she fell back onto her stomach. Her head continued to shake, her eyes got redder by the second and she hadn't taken a breath in almost a minute. By then, my mom was searching through the phonebook for the vet.

She called the number and got put on hold. Upon hearing this, I began to realize what was happening and started to tear up. I'm usually not a very emotional person, but the thought of Payton — the puppy we rescued from the Humane Society four years ago — dying while we watched helplessly took over my mind.

Finally, my mother was connected with Dr. Jernigan from the Sebring Animal Hospital. He wasn't at the office but could be there in a matter of minutes. At the same time, my dad began hitting Payton's stomach and sticking his finger down her throat. We thought she was choking and couldn't think of any other solution. Finally, as we picked her up and ran out the door, she came to. After about a minute and a half without breathing, her tail started wagging again and we all jumped in the car.

Aside from her usual whining in the car, she seemed back to normal. We still hurried to the vet. Dr. Jernigan arrived at the same time we did and quickly checked her out. His diagnosis was that Payton suffered a minor seizure that shouldn't have any detrimental effects as long as it was an isolated incident.

Payton's been fine since but the memory of that stressful night still makes me shiver. I'd like to personally say thank you to Dr. Jernigan for helping on such short notice and making our emergency a little less scary.