good news, bad news, good news

Good News - We have finally confirmed that our four year old yellow Lab x Ridgeback will actually protect  our family if we were threatened!  Buddy is the biggest sook of a dog ever.  We have always joked that if an intruder were to enter our property, he would lick and greet the intruder, presenting his ball for a game. 

Bad News - the 'intruder' was a 40cm Blue Tongue Lizard. 
Teen1 was clearing the yard (in preparation for her 18th party), faithful dog at her side as she went around collecting palm fronds and the like.  Said dog spots something moving in the grass, growls, hackles up  and gets between the intruder and teen1, keeping teen 1 away.  He attacked what teen1 thought was a snake.  Much shouting got the rest of us to come running, to prevent dog beign attacked back by a snake, to drag our hero the dog away, and then catch the two cats, which also came running to check out the commotion and thought they should finish the job that the dog started.  We we left with a confused dog, 2 cats angrily flicking their tails, locked in the laundry and one poor blue tongue with half of its nose hanging off.  :(  I also had three distressed teens to deal with as well as my own stomach doing loops.  The poor lizard had no other injury but this one was a biggie. 
When we collected our wits I told the girls we would have to catch the lizard and take it to the animal welfare hospital for either treatment or euthanazing as it would die a horrible, slow death if we left it.  (Some quick googling game me the best techniques - gotta love google.) So brave souls that we are, we got a box and another piece of  cardboard and cornered it so that it ran into the box.  Teen 1 & 3 were too distressed and grossed out to accompany me, so brave teen2 came to the animal hospital with me.
The kind folks at the animal hospital said that we had done the right thing as it would be in a lot of pain.  they also said they would most likely have to euthanase it as it may not be able to be successfully treated.  It would never be able to catch bugs or eat again.   :(  I am still quite distressed about the poor lizard.

The image is of a 30cm Blue Tongue Lizard. You can see how it got its name and why teen 1 thought it was a snake inthe grass.  I found the pic here. Check out Craig Allen's site for some great pics of Australian animals and informative as well as entertaining reading too.

Good News -  I knew there was a charity centre near the animal hospital.  Since we were going  in that direction, we loaded up the car with the last of the garage sale stuff to deliver to charity.  It turned out that the particular charity was the Animal Welfare op shop and they greatfully received our left over items.  I was glad that the charity which would get some benefit was one of the smaller ones (which don't get enough support) and was a very apt one for our recent experience.