This Wasn’t How We Planned to Leave Bingara

Life was pretty bloody good at our river camp in Bingara.

We were all loving the freedom, the peace and having the river right there in front of us.

Then Wal seemed a little off.

Nothing dramatic at first.

He just wasn’t himself.

Our old boy normally chooses to sleep outside. That’s his thing. He likes finding his spot under the awning or the van and settling himself in for the night.

But that night he was quite happy to come inside and sleep.

Cheech was hanging around him more than usual too.

Wal drank heaps of water and slept pretty well and, by morning, seemed much better. He was happy to go outside and was up and about like normal.

Okay.

Maybe just an off night.

The day went on as usual. We took the dogs for walks, Cheechy played with his ball and Col went for a “swim” in the river.

Although I’m fairly certain he was actually just washing his smelly body.

Same thing really.

😂

Everything seemed fine.

Until it wasn’t.

Now Cheech wasn’t right

Later that day we started getting organised for dinner and getting the fire going when we noticed Cheech wasn’t himself.

He was quiet.

Sleepy.

He just wanted to lie on me.

As time went on, he slowly got worse.

Then he started swaying.

He was wobbly on his feet.

And then he vomited.

Okay.

Now I was worried.

I rang a vet service and explained what was happening. They said to keep an eye on him and if he deteriorated further, he’d need to see a vet.

He had absolutely no interest in doing anything, so I put the poor little bugger to bed inside Maximus.

And that’s pretty much where he stayed.

He hardly moved all night.

Just slept.

Wal slept inside again too. He was still a bit flat and not quite himself, but Cheech was the one we were really watching.

By morning, Cheech woke up…

completely fine.

Back to being Cheech.

Thank God.

Except now…

Wal wasn’t.

Something was very wrong

During the night Col had got up to go to the toilet and I thought he’d let Wal outside because I hadn’t heard Wal move around at all.

But when morning came, Wal was still lying on his blanket.

In exactly the same position he’d been in the night before.

I opened the door so he could go outside.

He tried to stand.

And struggled.

Wal being Wal, he insisted on doing it himself.

He tried to get down the steps…

…and fell.

Once he was outside, he couldn’t stand properly.

He was wobbling.

Swaying.

Struggling just to stay on his feet.

He was full-on struggling to be a dog.

And that broke my heart.

This is Wal.

Our big, active, happy boy who is usually wandering around camp, sniffing everything and doing his own thing.

This wasn’t him.

There wasn’t really anything to discuss.

We were leaving.

We’d pack Maximus, find the closest town with a vet and get Wal there.

Whatever was going on with the dogs, we weren’t staying at Bingara waiting to see what happened next.

As we packed up, Wal vomited a couple of times.

He was still struggling to stand and move.

I just wanted to get him to a vet.

So naturally…

the fucking Gator stopped working.

You have GOT to be kidding me

Everything had actually packed up quickly and smoothly.

For once.

All we needed to do was raise Maximus so we could hitch him to Shaun.

I pressed the button on the Gator.

Nothing.

Pressed it again.

Nothing.

Oh, come on.

I unplugged the Anderson plug, thinking maybe we had a power issue.

Plugged it back in.

The Gator would retract.

Excellent.

Now extend.

Nothing.

It would go down.

It would not go up.

Which isn’t particularly useful when the entire reason you need the bloody thing is to lift the caravan.

Col tried.

Nothing.

He flicked things.

Tried again.

Nothing.

At this point Wal was sick, we needed to get him to a vet and our bloody caravan wouldn’t hitch to the car.

It was one of those moments where you think:

Seriously? Right now?

Col kept fiddling with it.

Then suddenly…

BZZZZZZZ.

Up it went.

OH THANK GOD.

No questions.

Don’t touch anything unnecessary.

Just hitch the bloody van.

Wal and Cheech into Shaun.

Maximus connected.

GO.

Barraba

We travelled just over 60 kilometres to Barraba and went straight to the vet.

And this is where we met Bec.

I cannot speak highly enough of her.

She squeezed us in and immediately took such good care of Wal.

Tests showed he had issues with his liver and kidney function, which Bec thought were most likely caused by some form of toxin. She also detected a heart murmur.

He was really unwell.

Bec needed to keep him there, put him on an IV drip and monitor him.

Leaving him was awful.

He looked so forlorn and sad as we walked away.

And at that moment we genuinely didn’t know whether we’d ever see our beautiful old boy alive again.

He was that sick.

❤️

Meanwhile, Cheech had his own problems

Because Cheech had been sick the previous night, Bec checked him as well.

She listened to his heart.

Checked his gums and tongue.

Everything seemed okay.

Then she decided she’d take his temperature.

Cheech had been quite cooperative up until this point.

That cooperation ended abruptly when he discovered where the thermometer was going.

🤣

I was holding him while Bec tried to take his temperature.

Cheech immediately started climbing up me.

She tried again.

Higher he climbed.

Apparently his plan was that if he could reach the top of my head, his freckle would become medically inaccessible.

Eventually I managed to hold him still enough for Bec to get the job done.

The look on Cheech’s face suggested this was not the level of veterinary care he’d been expecting.

😂

Just the three of us

So now we had Cheech on his own.

And that was strange too.

He’s never really been without Wal.

We took him for a couple of walks, including one up the main street of Barraba, where he was absolutely loving all the attention he was getting from the older people we passed.

We met one lovely older lady driving possibly the snazziest mobility scooter I’d ever seen.

She told us she didn’t really like dogs.

Big dogs frightened her.

But she loved cats and had two of them.

Then she told us about taking one of her kittens to the vet.

Apparently the kitten had been happily playing around on the examination table…

…until the thermometer went up its bum.

She reckoned its little eyes nearly popped out of its head.

She was laughing her head off telling us the story.

Cheech, having experienced a similar indignity only hours earlier, probably didn’t find it nearly as amusing.

🤣

A miracle occurred

While we were waiting to hear about Wal, Col decided to do some jobs around Maximus.

Remember that temporary stabiliser pin?

The one we were going to replace properly once it cooled down?

The one that was still there four days later?

HE CHANGED IT.

😳

Not only that, he did some other running repairs on the stabilisers and got them working much better.

Shocker.

Apparently all it takes to get a temporary caravan repair finished around here is an emergency trip to another town and a dog staying overnight at the vet.

😂

The goat who thinks he’s a horse

The little caravan park we’d landed in at Barraba turned out to be a sweet spot.

Next door was a house on a few acres with four horses.

And a goat.

Except I’m fairly certain nobody has informed the goat that he is a goat.

As far as he’s concerned, he’s horse number five.

Wherever the horses go, the goat goes.

The owner loads the horses into the float to take them to work…

…and the goat lines up to get in too.

🤣

If he can’t see the horses, he frets.

Honestly, after the previous 24 hours, watching a goat convinced it belonged with four horses was exactly the sort of entertainment I needed.

The phone call

Late that afternoon, Bec rang.

Wal was doing better.

Huge relief.

But she wanted to keep him overnight on the IV drip and said she’d call us in the morning.

There wasn’t much else we could do.

So we waited.

The next morning, at about 9am, the phone rang.

It was Bec.

Wal was great.

And he was ready to come home.

❤️

She hadn’t been able to retest his liver and kidney function because Wal had decided he was feeling well enough to refuse to let her take any more blood.

Which sounded considerably more like our Wal.

When we arrived at the vet, he was so excited to see us.

And I can’t tell you how good it felt to see that face looking back at us again.

The dog we’d left the day before had looked so sick that we didn’t know whether we’d ever bring him home.

And here he was.

Our Wal.

Ready to leave.

Another change of plans

We’d planned to stay another night beside the river at Bingara.

Instead, we packed up in a hurry, drove more than 60 kilometres looking for help and ended up spending a couple of nights in a sweet little caravan park at Barraba.

Not remotely what we’d planned.

But plans don’t matter much when one of your family needs you.

Bingara had been beautiful.

Barraba wasn’t even supposed to be a stop.

And yet it gave us exactly what we needed when we needed it — a place to stay, a wonderful vet and, most importantly…

our Wal back.

❤️🐾

Just another unexpected detour in the world of Wobs n Taz.

And this time, one we were very bloody grateful had a happy ending.