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“Harper always jokes about him eating dead raccoons.”
“Sometimes dogs can eat squirrels or rabbits that died of poison and get a dose that way. But we didn’t see any evidence of it in his stomach,” he said.
“No, Venom is very disciplined. He’s not supposed to eat things not in his bowl. And he’s been trained that way. He was only gone for like thirty seconds. Didn’t take the time to go check the field but will do that when we get home. Do you need a sample of that before you can determine what else to do?”
“We’re going to monitor him overnight, and with him sedated, being in the room might cause him to fight the medication. So I would say go home and look for some evidence. It appears it may have been laced raw hamburger meat, judging by the appearance of the contents. If that isn’t his normal supper, I would guess it was poisoned meat. And meat, especially raw meat, it’s pretty hard for a dog to avoid.”
They agreed to leave him at the hospital. Lydia wanted to see him before she left, so the vet showed her back to the recovery room. He was in a large kennel lying down on a soft blanket. He had IVs in his right leg and seemed to be sleeping soundly. He still had a light red bloody ooze from his mouth and nose, but not nearly as deep red as it had been before.
“What causes the blood?” she asked the vet.
“It’s bleeding, stomach lining bleeding. We’ll probably send him home with sucralfate and a week’s worth of prescription diet that is formulated to be easy on the stomach while it heals. We’ve given him some antibiotics in case it is something that carries infection. Just as a precaution.”
Lydia reached her hand through the bars but couldn’t touch Venom, so the vet opened the door and allowed her to speak to him and pet his head and the length of his body. He was sweating but otherwise seemed to be calm.
“I’m here. We’re here for you. We’re gonna make you all better. You just try your best to get well, okay? We’re not leaving you. We’re all here. Love you, Venom.”
Danny put his arm around her as she sniffled her way from the emergency room back to the lobby and then out to her car. Greg drove while Lydia sat in the backseat by herself, silently weeping.
Of all the things that could happen—and she’d warned Harper about this—all of the things she predicted had come true. Harper was satisfied that Venom was an adequate deterrent to anybody who would want to mess with them. But it turned out Venom could be compromised, and she felt guilty she hadn’t been more careful watching him. She’d had that premonition that something was going to happen.
She thought about whether or not she’d seen anybody on the driveway as they came up the road and punched in the new code for the lower gate. It opened quickly. And then closed behind them as they drove on their way to the second gate. They passed Sally’s house, her lights were still on. Her car was gone, since it was up at Lydia and Harper’s.
They punched in the code for the second gate and drove up, seeing the sprinter van and Sally’s Jeep park next to it. She was relieved.
“Did you guys text her? I sure don’t want to come through the front door and get blasted in my own house.”
“All taken care of, Lydia,” said Danny, holding up his phone.
The front door was locked, but after a few seconds, Sally opened the door and looked with anticipation at her. She was worried.
“He’s stable for now. They put him into an induced coma. They figured that it’s poison.”
Sally grabbed her in her arms, “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry. Did you tell Harper?”
“I tried to. I left him a message.”
“Greg and I are going to go down and search the brush and see if we can find what he ate. Do you have a couple baggies or a container of some kind in case we find it?” said Danny.
“Yes, let me get you some.” She tore from her embrace with Sally, ran to the kitchen, and grabbed a handful of baggies. “These work?”
The two of them took off with flashlights.
Sally directed her to sit down on the couch and offered to get her some tea or a glass of water. Lydia said she’d have a little bit of tea with her if she didn’t mind making it.
Sally shouted from the kitchen. “Whoever this is, Lydia, it’s really something I think you need to tell the police about. I know Harper will have a way he wants to do this, but you’ve got to get law enforcement involved. They will do the investigation. Maybe there’s a string of these going on.”
“You mean, not the same people that came by the other night? Not the weird couple at the store? It’s just all coincidence? It’s too weird to be an isolated incident. I think they are all related, Sally.”
“I wish I could tell you I didn’t believe that, but I think you’re right. And we need some direction from Harper. Why don’t you try calling him again?”
“I’ll do it in a minute. Let me see what they find outside first. He’s gotten the text, and usually, he reads his texts and doesn’t listen to voicemail. But something must be going on. He’s out of communication.”
The men came inside with several baggies of small bits of what look like red hamburger meat and raw steak. “We found several places with the stuff. I can’t tell which he ate from, but there’s about ten balls of it planted everywhere out in the field. It’s obvious they intended to get him. This was directed toward Venom, not toward you or anybody else. They wanted to get Venom out of the picture,” said Danny.
“Should I call the police?” Lydia asked.
“What about Harper? What does he say?” Greg asked.
