Did I ever tell you the one about Wynonna's accidental drug overdose?

I think not. So now's as good a time as any.

It was February 12, 2001. I was living on a little ranchette about 35 miles east of Albuquerque. Wynonna was almost five years old. I was pet-sitting my friend's incontinent Rhodesian Ridgeback, Winnie, at the time. Also in residence were two yellow labs, two goats, two horses, and three cats. So, yeah, I was kind of busy at feeding time.

Anyway, Wynonna came into the garage for her breakfast while I went out to the barn to feed the horses and scoop poop. When I came back to the garage about 15 minutes later, Wynonna was still eating. Hmm. How odd. Then I realized that she wasn't eating her pig food, she was eating pills! Pills that had been in a prescription bottle with a child-but-not-pig-proof lid, that had been atop a large container of Winnie's dog food, that Wynonna had knocked over. The pills were Phenylpropanolamine, which Winnie was taking for her urinary incontinence.

I had no idea how many pills were in the bottle to begin with, nor how many Wynonna had consumed, but I spent the next half hour on the phone trying to find out – unsuccessfully – while juggling calls to veterinarians, poison control, and a bunch of other people who answered their phone only to hear me say, "my pig has O.D.'d!"

All of those frantic calls resulted in a game plan. My friend Kim would go to the local vet's office, pick up a huge dose of powdered charcoal, then bring it to my house, where we would somehow manage to squirt it into Wynonna's mouth, then load her into a dog crate, then load the dog crate into my jeep, then I would drive to Albuquerque, then a new vet who specializes in "exotics" would try to save Wynonna's life. Is your heart racing yet? Mine is.

Meanwhile, Wynonna was definitely feeling the effects of the Phenylpropanolamine, which, according to Wikipedia, "acts as a potent and selective releasing agent of norepinephrine or epinephrine," whatever that means. For Wynonna, it meant she was anxious, jittery, restless, and walking around really fast. Sort of like me if I drink 10 pots of coffee.

So Kim finally gets to my house with her 3-year-old daughter in tow. We squirt the charcoal in Wynonna's mouth, while Wynonna is SCREAMING, and Kim's daughter is SCREAMING, and my heart is beating so fast I'm probably having a heart attack but don't have time to realize it.

I get Wynonna to the vet in Albuquerque. He sedates her, puts her on an IV overnight, and I pick her up the next day and she's perfectly fine. He warns me that she might suffer liver damage, and we'd need to keep an eye on her blood pressure (though I don't recall him telling me exactly how we would do that...I'm still trying to picture Wynonna with a blood-pressure cuff on her stubby little leg).

Bottom line, here it is 11 years later and Wynonna has no lasting effects from her accidental drug overdose ... except for maybe her attitude. She has been remarkably healthy and is the quintessential easy keeper.

But a few weeks ago, Wynonna started to squeak. The noise appears to be tooth- or gum-related, and it's getting louder by the day. I called the vet last Friday to schedule an appointment. I asked him if there was a sedative I could give a 16-year-old pig who hasn't traveled in 6-and-a-half years who is going to be really mad and stressed out when I stuff her into a dog crate and load her into the truck to take her to town. He said no. He also said, "16? Really?"

So I'm counting down the hours until our appointment this Friday (and not in a good way). I'm reasonably confident that I can get Wynonna into the truck in the same way I took Willie the goat to the vet a few years ago. The vet will sedate her, check her mouth, and pull a tooth or do whatever needs doing. And once we're back home Friday afternoon, I'm sure I'll be able to look back on the whole episode and laugh ...

...but Wynonna's stink-eye may become permanent.