Piancavallo Hike

We headed up to Piancavallo with our dog, Emma, for a hike. We found a trailhead that started after passing through a sled dog farm. Most of the sled dogs were chained up but a few that were not greeted us and even hiked for about a mile with us. Emma was loving running on the hillside with her new doggy friends!

The hike was about a 2 mile loop that passed by a site where there had clearly been an avalanche in some past winter season. The weather was nice - not too cold up on the mountain. We were all enjoying ourselves.

As we came back to the sled dog farm, more of the dogs were unchained. A pack approached, including two of the dogs that had hiked with us. All of a sudden, Emma got bit several times on the face and head. Tim ran over to shoo the pack of dogs away. Our poor baby had a gash just over her eye.

Luckily, Emma did not seem too bothered by it but you could see the top of Emma's eyelid through the gash. We decided to put Emma in the bathtub and wash the cut out so as to avoid any infection setting in until we could get her to a vet on Monday (Aviano Air Base does not offer any emergency vet services). We continued washing the cut out every few hours to keep it clean.

As the night wore on, we could tell Emma was beginning to feel not so well. We found an emergency vet number, which was a cell phone number rotated among the Italian Nationals in the Aviano area. He told us to give him a call in the morning if Emma still wasn't feeling well.

This morning, Emma's cut was a little bit pussy, indicating the beginning of an infection. We took her in where the vet shaved the hair around her eye, cleaned it out, gave her a shot of antibiotics, and sprayed some blue gauze over it so the cut would stay together. Luckily, she didn't need stitches.  After the antibiotics and many treats, Emma is already feeling better.  Looks like she will be fine.