Scary Story!

 

This little weasel (aka Robin the (sometimes) Good) gave us quite the scare yesterday and we're not entirely out of the woods yet. As is typical, Robin ate, I fed Neko (with Robin's help) and then we retire upstairs to join Bob and look at the news on the Internet. Robin always get a Kong (*1). So we're drinking coffee and looking at the idiotic things that rethuglicans are puling on about when I turn to Bob and say, "Where's Robin?" She had obviously finished the Kong and had debarked to other parts.

I walked downstairs and Lo!! The muffins I had placed on the counter to thaw for breakfast has mysteriously disappeared. Robin was looking guilty and sort of slunk off into the living room, I took three more muffins out of the freezer. (In all fairness, she had left us one muffin) 

About twenty minutes later, it occurred to me that these were bran muffins... with RAISINS which we all know are poisonous to dogs. I took out my phone and gooogled just how toxic are they... turns out VERY!! Like 1 raisin for ten pounds of dog! Like I know Robin consumed more than 6 raisins!!

So I call our vet and they advise to give her a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide 3% every 15 minutes until she throws up. Anyone want to guess how hard that is? I think I managed to get like a drop of peroxide in her mouth and a bunch all over my face and hands (She wasn't having it). So off to the vet's we went; me hoping that Robin would simply puke in the car as she hates car rides anyway but no go.

I wind up waiting at the vet's for over two hours as they try (unsucessfully) induce vomiting. (*2) I sat with Robin, thinking maybe seeing me would help her hurl in unfamiliar surroundings. Still nothing. So the vet then takes Robin back into an exam room and they stuff her full of charcoal, which apparently helps absorb any toxins, which she will then throw up. They instruct me that when she throws up, it will be a big, fat, nasty, gooey, black mess.

Which it was because three minutes after returning home, Robin hurled copiously all over the living room rug. Personally? I was simply glad she had expelled the offending food (*3). I examined it (yes, that's what dog owners do!) and it looked pretty undigested so I'm at least mostly sure she got rid of everything in her.

Today, she seems fine. She ate with gusto (nothing off our counter), ran around outside, pooped an "interesting" black turd (more charcoal!) and seems fine. She is due to return for a follow-up exam on Saturday to check her blood for abnormal readings. I told her today that those were the world's most expensive muffins: $300 for three muffins!!!

(*1) A large-ish rubber thing that looks like some sort of sex toy that you fill with broken up dog biscuits and peanut butter. Robin is a serious fan of her morning Kong!! Keeps her "busy" for about three minutes...

(*2) Interesting fact: I noticed Robin's eyes were really red and the vet explained the vomit-inducing medication is administered through eye drops! Who would think this?!!?!? It apparently gets absorbed really quickly through the conjunctiva! Weird!

(*3) Lots of it! Breakfast! A Kong! Three muffins!! The dog is NOT starving!!

Under No Circumstances!

 Several things prompted me to purchase natto, a Japanese fermented soy bean food that is supposed to be extremely good for you. At our local health food emporium, several helpful sales people had trouble locating it- which should have been a big red flag as to how "popular" it is. (Or, as we will establish, isn't). I purchased two containers, one small bean and the other large bean.

I had been warned that it was an acquired taste and that it took getting used to. But Bob and I are pretty game when it comes to trying strange stuff (*1) and I said, "Let's give it a whirl". Be warned if you have a weak stomach... 

Okay, so one other weird thing is the instruction to stir the natto 400 times before consuming. I started off, got to 50 and handed the honors on to Bob. I expected to get the natto back at 100 stirs and carry on alternating but Bob was so enthusiastic that he stirred his heart out and soon we had achieved the 400 required for optimal enjoyment. I am going to add here that the "aroma" exuding from this container was... interesting and not exactly appealing, but even hard boiled eggs smell kind of like sulphur. We had a few discussions as to how best to ingest this substance; Bob opting for its use as a condiment on top of rice, me suggesting in a Triscuit cracker (something familiar) with mustard and cheese.

I will also insert here that as it was 4/20, we had smoked a nice joint and were pleasantly, smilingly buzzed. We do our best to observe most national holidays. We were stoked!

Oh boy. Despite the odor- because in truth it was an sewage-like odor, not aroma- and despite the resembleance of its texture to the specific drool that occurs prior to one's dog puking (*2) I gamely raised that cracker to my mouth and bit in. I had chewed this edible monstrosity for approximately four seconds and was beginning to consider swallowing when what can only be called a deeply visceral response occurred. My entire body from my feet up to my throat recoiled and I was wracked by the need to eject the alien from my being. My body was screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Under no circumstances!! Whatever that thing is it will not be allowed in!!" I rose quickly and said, "I think I'm going to throw up!" Which I did, happily having made it to the bathroom in time. (*3)

Bob was not inclined to hurl but he allowed that maybe you had to grow up eating it to appreciate it and that it did seem to be an acquired taste. The one cracker taste test was enough to seal our natto experiment and the offending package was covered and returned to the refrigerator. It took a while to get that taste and texture from our mouths memory banks (*4) We completed dinner with a salad and crackers and cheese. Palate cleansing...

So anyone with an adventurous streak and a very, very strong stomach is more than welcome to two free containers of almost brand new natto. Hey! It's reputed to be very, very good for you!

(*1) Bob much more so than me!!

(*2) Ropey, thick but stringy and full of slime, slime, slime! Try washing it off your hands; kinda like slug juice.

(*3) I cannot even remember the last time I puked. Honestly. This happened so fast that it was impressive. Every fiber of my being rebelled against natto. My apologies to Japanese food culture but it was not a good experiment. 

(*4) Sorry to say, even looking at these pictures evokes a certain gut response. Not pleasant!

Do They Ever Listen?

Sometimes, despite not having children, I feel called upon to act as someone's mother. And believe me, this is not a role I feel comfortable with. I find myself saying things like, "It's for your own good!" or "Why are you doing this? You're making me very unhappy!" The "children" I am referring are the four-footed kind: Maggie and Robin. Mostly, my pleas for good behavior fall upon deaf ears.
  Occasionally, I am forced to reprimand Maggie the Mexican Pony. (It comes with having a 900 pound pet; you cannot allow her to bite, kick or otherwise attempt to intimidate you- especially when you're trying to do something good like pick out her hooves.)  I may growl at Maggie or sharply rebuke her. (No, I am not beating her about the ears with a stick, but I push her off firmly or snap her lead line). The punchline here is that Robin the Good finds this entertaining. She sits on the other side of the fence and laughs tauntingly. There is a bit of sibling rivalry between the two critters...

And as most of you know, I rarely get mad at Lil' Robin - like maybe three and a half times in the past two years. She is a very good dog. But the other day proved the exception to the rule.
The blacksmith came to trim Maggie's feet. Typically, he does this out by the barn but on Thursday I thought to bring Maggie up on the lawn so she could graze a bit and there are fewer gates for him to carry his tools through. Maggie stood fine, despite a strong wind and in short order her hooves looked nice and smooth and attended to. (Next time, maybe she'll opt for a pretty French tip!)

 

I decided to go in the house to wash my hands and eat lunch before cleaning up the lawn. Big mistake! As I opened the door Robin bolted out (offense #1), shoving me out of the way as she hurtled straight to where the horse's feet had been trimmed and (offense #2) immediately scarfed down a luscious selection of hoof parings.
This is beyond gross. Hoof parings are like big nasty old dirty toenails. And they're sharp! No matter how clean you keep your horse's pasture, they stand around on poop and mud and all kinds of bacteria and they stink. Needless to say, is truly delicious to dogs.
I was frantically crawling around on hands and knees, fishing for bits and chunks and thought I had gotten them all. And I kept ordering Robin to go play some place else. I threw the balls, I waved attractive sticks in the air... and she still kept returning to the hoof trimmings. It got ridiculous; I had told her seventy three times to "Get away from there!!!" in my sternest voice. She earned a new nickname: "Sneakus" because every time I turned around she had snuck back over to snorfle around. I finally took a tarp and some rocks and covered the area. One of the funnier moments was when I glanced back to see Maggie at the fence line, visibly laughing at Robin (for a change) as if to say, "Nyah, nyah, nyah! Rita NEVER yells at you!! How's it feel now?!?!?"

The morning after, I can't find Robin and I go downstairs and she's seated at that door and I detect that familiar shoulder hunch and gak gak gak sound like she's starting to throw up... so out the door she goes, barely clears the terrace before  ejecting a foamy mess. And sure enough! It's got a ripe chunk of hoof in it, which I snatched up in my (gloved) hand and threw far over the fence. (Gloves are in the laundry.) Do they ever listen to me? I told her she'd get sick!

Combination Holiday

We celebrated a truly combined holiday yesterday. As not all family celebrants were able to attend on actual Easter, we celebrated a day earlier; which made for a combination Passover/Easter/April Fool's Day and Beatrice's Birthday. Such modern, multi-tasking holiday types are we.
There were many eggs presented, all lovely. Beatrice and John contributed the above selection of glamorous pastel saturated hues. Cathy made a basket of dyed eggs, too- some alluringly dark and mysterious; I believe she alluded to one as being a hundred year old egg. I ate that one at lunch.

As  this was the first Easter/Multiplex holiday that we were observing since Mommy passed away, I had thought to honor her memory with setting an elegant table with the good silverware and formal dishes. But when I opened the silver box, it smelled moldy, and even worse was the fact that the actual silver smelled and no amount of washing seemed to remove it. So we resorted to everyday forks, knives and spoons. The food tasted just fine.
And food! There was food aplenty! Scalloped potatoes and asparagus with confetti and pork cooked in the crock pot and Key Lime Pie and wine and beer. One of my favorite moments of the day came when we left the great outdoors, where we had been enjoying the sun and spring-like weather and everyone was hungry and the house was heavy with the scent of heavenly roasting pork and John exclaimed, "PORK!" I think he summed up what we all were anticipating.

I had decorated for the multiple holiday festivities and it did turn out to be a colorful event, what with all the eggs and the centerpiece, which featured a strange bird sculpture that had once been at Mommy's house. (Mommy was present in a few ways at Easter; I guess you can't help but miss someone who hosted holidays for so many years.)

My other favorite moment was when we were all still outside, prior to eating, and Beatrice was spontaneously playing soccer with Robin. I really encourage Beatrice and John to get a dog; well, not just any dog. They should put in for one of Robin's puppies which we are now planning for next year, as this year is already too hectic. (I'll need to arrange "maternity leave" from work to help handle the delivery and nursery duties!)
And speaking of Robin, she had quite a morning. I got up early and made coffee and was on the computer checking emails when I realized that Lil Robin was not laying under the computer table (and on my left foot) and it seemed awfully quiet. I went looking for her down stairs and found her contemplating two piles of her own vomit. (Fortunately, she's not like some dogs who eat their own puke...) She seemed just fine soon after but I think she overdid the cleaning of plates and consuming of odd bits at Easter dinner. Too much excitement!

More egg shots! These were the leftovers, three of which made a delicious egg salad sandwich for our lunch today. I especially liked that two tone pastel purplish and blue on in the center. I didn't want to crack that shell as it was so pretty!