In her years of walking five miles each morning, Honey had only called me to come get her twice - once when she was caught in a sudden rainstorm and once when she was bitten by a dog.
Call number three came last week.
She was about as far away from the house as she gets when she was stung between the toes by a Cow Ant. We don't know if the critter was inside her sock when she put it on, or how it could have gotten there, and we have no idea why it chose that moment to sting her. I do know that it hurt bad enough that Honey didn't think she could make it home.
The original pain subsided shortly after we got home - she actually talked about resuming her walk, but decided against it - and life went back to normal. Two days later, it started itching so bad it was driving her nuts.
I did some on line research and learned more than I ever wanted to know about Cow Ants - also known as Red Velvet Ants and Cow Killer Ants, they are not an ant at all, they're Wasps! If you get stung, it was a female - females are wingless but have stingers, males have wings but no stinger.
They are solitary, so at least you'll never come across a colony of Cow Ants. They lay their eggs in the ground in the nests of burrowing wasps and other insects, and their offspring feed on the larvae of the host.
The one useful thing I learned is that Cortisone will relieve the itch. Honey tried that, and it worked.
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