Let me preface this post by saying that I really do love animals, especially dogs. My whole family loves animals. We love our dogs. My parents and brother spoil the dogs, and they get more treats than most dogs, I’m sure. So really, there’s no need to call Pet Protective Services, or the Humane Society, or the Dog Abuse Hotline. Really. Don’t. Call. Accidents happen. And as I learned last week, they are more likely to happen when you’ve got a bonfire, tiki torches and two big, fluffy Siberian Huskies.
It’s kind of my fault. Last Thursday night, at my parents’ house in Indiana, the guys started a bonfire in the fire pit down by the creek. And we fired up some citronella tiki torches to keep the pesky mosquitoes from eating us and injecting us with their ugly west nile virus.
We let Kody, the old ornery husky, join us without a leash because he’s too much of a sissy to run away. But Kita, the younger, fiercer, strong-willed dog cannot be trusted outside. She runs away the instant she can. In fact, she’s sort of like those Velociraptors in Jurrasic Park, constantly testing the electric fence for any breach in the system so that she can break free. She had to stay inside.
With the fire roaring, I went inside to get the s’more ingredients, because duh, you can’t have a bonfire without s’mores. And poor Kita looked so lonely inside, all by herself, while we were swatting insects having a grand ol’ time down by the bonfire. So I said “Kita, want to come outside? Where’s your leash? Com’on, let’s go outside!” And of course, she was thrilled to join us, even though she was on a leash.
Do you see where this is going? Dog. Leash. Tiki torch. The poor dog was so excited to be outside, she was prancing all over the place, smelling all the bug spray-cintronella-bonfire-rabbit poop smells. She pranced to the left, in front of the tiki torch. Then she pranced to the right, behind the tiki torch. And she wrapped her leash around the blazing tiki torch and pulled it down. With all the darting and prancing, it nearly missed hitting her…but not quite.
In all the commotion, Eric dropped the leash, and the dog started running away. I saw that she had a glowing red line of fire on her back. I scream “Mom! Mom! The dog’s on fire! Put her out!!”
Poor Kita. What do you when the dog is on fire? She didn’t really understand the whole stop, drop and roll thing. She was just running. On fire. And she didn’t even know she was on fire–she has so much fur that she couldn’t feel it. My mom caught her quickly, and did some crazy mom-magic trick to make her stop burning while not burning her own hands. She may have shoved her onto the ground, but I’m not sure. I followed up by dumping a bottle of water on Kita for good measure.
So my advice is that anyone who has a dog should not keep it on a leash when lit tiki torches are in the vicinity. Because trust me, burning dog fur does not smell that good. And you will feel very bad.
Luckily it only got the very tip of her neck-fur. She was surprisingly non-flammable. Singed a bit, were you?
This is Kita. We were kind of mean to dress her up like a reindeer last December. But the fire was a complete accident, I swear.