Tuesday morning it was quite a shock for border collie Jay and his owner Maaike from Kaatsheuvel. After Maaike was stung and other hikers warned about wasps, they rushed out of the forest together. It soon became apparent to the dog that it was not just one animal, there were at least fifty wasps deep in its fur. “He was very upset.”
Like every day, Maaike walked with her dogs through the woods near the ice rink in Kaatsheuvel on Tuesday. “I was stung by an insect myself but I wasn’t sure what. Then other hikers shouted that there were a lot of wasps flying around, so I ran out of the woods with my dogs.”
“Wasps kept flying out of his fur.”
Two of Maaike’s dogs were stabbed. Jay too, but it soon became apparent that there was more to it. “He started to walk slower and slower. When I looked, there was a wasp on his fur. I wanted to get the animal off him but then wasps kept coming off his fur. It didn’t start and Jay reacted violently. “
Once at the vet, they immediately gave the dog medicine. “They took a very long time to remove all the critters. In the animal hospital alone, they have removed fifty wasps from his fur, apart from the animals that I already removed in the forest. Jay is still in the hospital for observation. stayed.”
The ten-year-old border collie has now returned home. Maaike does not know how often he was stabbed. “He’s still very upset.” She made a report to Natuurmonumenten, the owner of the forest. Wednesday morning she went back with a forester.
“A badger would have dug the wasp’s nest underground.”
“Because the exact spot was difficult to explain, I designated it. Fortunately, Natuurmonumenten took this seriously. The forester told me that a badger had probably dug up a wasp’s nest. He has cordoned off the spot with ribbons.”
The owner hopes that other hikers have been warned about this. “But a dog could still pass under the ribbon.” In any case, she is not afraid that her dog will no longer want to walk in the woods, although Jay still has to recover from the shock.
