Curiosity got the best of my pup.

[Gus]

This incident was my fault so I'm hoping I can just tell the story and give all other dog owners a reminder that rapalas and dogs don't mix well.

This weekend while fishing out in the boat my pup innocently decided to sniff at a rapala which was stowed on a rod not in use at the time rather sitting in the verticle rod rack. What happend next was a fury of dogs, rods, hooks, and humans not knowing what the heck was going on.

Like I said I believe the pup just went to sniff at a Husky Jerk on a rod. Well what happened was the treble hook somehow made its way into his nostril and when he went to pull away the hook was burried in his nose from the inside and now poking out the top of his nose. Next the dog panicked, started violently pulling away from the hook which just drove it in deeper. The rods were falling from the rack as they chased him about the boat. My fishing buddy and I were trying to grab the dog and stop the mayhem still not knowing exactly what happend. I managed to grab the dog and hold him still. Now we see the hook burried up his nose and out the top. We immediatly cut the line freeing any tension. Then the dog shook again and burried a hook into my finger! Luckily it was not deep or we would have been in much bigger trouble. The pup pulled again before I could dislodge the hook and he ripped the hook out of my hand. Like I said, it wasn't burried too deep so it was a fairly small tear and something easily treated later. We still had to get the hook out of the dog and fast. He was not sitting still any second he had this hook in his nose unless we were holding him down.

I could see the point coming out the top of his nose but the barb was not all the way through yet. My first thought was to push it through and cut the barb then back the hook out. I grabbed the treble with a pliers and attempted to push it just a little further. This sent the pup into a panic and again we had to subdue him. If you have never experienced this a dog's nose feels a lot like leather and it was very tough trying to push this hook the rest of the way through. One more try yieled the same results. I was nervous a trip to the animal hospital was in order. I decided to try one more time. This time as I grabbed the hook with the pliers the dog ripped his head away which popped the hook out without pushing the barb through. My only thought is that the barb wasn't burried as deep as I assumed it was because it backed out rather easy compared to my attempts to get it all the way through to cut the barb.

Surprisingly I bled more than the dog and he didn't seem to even have a tender nose the rest of the weekend.

So one lesson lesson I learned was to never leave lures or hooks out in the open even if the rod is technically being stored and not used. Chances are a curious pup or a wagging tail may catch a hook and cause a heck of an accident. I feel lucky the situation ended the way it did. Please be carefull and good luck.

[Johnny_Namakan]

Man, I got weak just thinking about it. Sounds like the pup is OK so that's good news. I hate those darn hooks. I always worry about that. Whenever i land a fish the dog comes to check it out and I push her away. I'm always afraid she'll get a hook in the face. I had a similar thing happen when my dog was a pup. I had her in the crate and she wanted out. She decided to try and bite through the wire cage door. Well, her tiny little jaw fit through the wire and then she wasn't able to get it out. All I heard was an awful yelping from the other room and went to check it out and found her jaw lodged in the wire. Of course, like your dog, mine paniced. So of course now I'm panicing. I couldn't get her jaw out. She was pulling at it trying desperately to get free. I ran to the basement to find wire cutters....nothing there. I ran to the garage to find wire cutters.....nothing there. WHERE THE HECK ARE MY DANG TOOLS???? Never there when you need them. This all took about 2 minutes, but with a dog crying in the background it felt like eternity. With no immediate options left I tried again to get her jaw out. Her bottom two canine teeth is what were caught in the mesh. It turned out it was all about angles. I finally got her head positioned to an angle that allowed her teeth to come free and she was fine. But man, I was afraid to put her back in that kennel again. Them darn pups always find a way to take a couple years off a guys life, don't they?