Dog Shenanigans

My dogs are rascals, that’s the truth.  They often amuse me, but sometimes they scare the crap out of me.  Last night was rough and pretty terrifying – we had a bad chocolate scare with this guy.

I got home from yoga last night close to 8 p.m. to find that one of my Christmas presents from Alex had been unwrapped by one of the dogs. At a quick glance I wasn’t sure what was destroyed, and I yelled, “Who did this?” As Rambo flattened his ears and shirked into a corner (while Lucy just smiled dumbly like “when’s dinner?!), I knew he was the guilty party.  I got down to see what he had gotten into, and my heart sunk – an entire 3.5 oz bar of 90% dark chocolate was missing, only the wrapper and foil in shreds left behind.  I wasn’t sure when he had ingested it. I texted Alex and gathered my thoughts.

We’ve had a chocolate scare in the past with Lucy, and we induced vomiting with peroxide on her with good results.  While I was gathering the peroxide, Rambo threw up once on his own, which I thought was a good sign that he was getting it out of his system.  Alex called from work and we talked about it, and I looked over and Rambo’s back legs were trembling.  I freaked a bit, got off the phone, and got a tablespoon of peroxide in the little guy.  Moments later, my neighbor, Zach, came over after Alex alerted him to what was going on.  While I was soothing Rambo with pets and sweet words, waiting the 10 minutes it typically takes for the peroxide to take effect, my neighbor got online and started researching chocolate toxicity in dogs.  Rambo had ingested enough chocolate to kill a dog 3 times his size, and I already knew that the darker the chocolate, the worse it is for dogs.

It wasn’t long before Rambo started vomiting, and he brought up A LOT of the chocolate, but unlike Lucy’s speedy recovery during her ordeal (she’s over twice Rambo’s size and had ingested less chocolate than he had), he wasn’t doing too well – he was shaking and had glassy eyes – and I asked Zach to run us to the emergency vet.  I noted in the car that Rambo’s heart was racing, and I held him tight and prayed hard that I wasn’t going to lose my little man.

We got to the vet, and they took him back to take his vitals while we got signed in.  The doctor came to talk to me, and shortly after that a tech came with several estimates for treatment.  We had discussed what I could afford, and they had a couple estimates that exceeded it, but a couple that were within my price range.  The ones within my price range involved me taking him home to keep an eye on him instead of admitting him for fluids. I picked a plan and they got to work – they induced vomiting once more, then gave him an antinausea medication, then gave him activated charcoal, having to wait a while between each step.  The doctor came back out to tell me that his heart rate had dropped some and that I was to watch for muscle tremors or extreme restlessness (the caffeine content in chocolate is stressful to the dog, on top of the theobromine which is the component that is toxic to canines), and to bring him back in immediately if he took a turn for the worse.  The doctor had also instructed that Rambo could have water but not in great volumes because it could cause him to throw up the charcoal, but unfortunately both the chocolate and the charcoal would cause him to be extremely thirsty. The medicine they used to induce vomiting on him actually had a bit of a sedative effect, so Zach brought me and my sleepy puppy home, and we waited for Alex to come home.

Rambo was resting, but his heart rate was still elevated, and I sat with him on the couch, making sure that no other adverse effects were going on.  He did still have a mild shiver, which I now assume was the caffeine working through his system, so I was keeping a watchful eye on that too.  He was able to eat a little bit of food, and boy did he want to drink a lot of water, but I kept it off the ground and only gave him a little at a time. When Alex got home I snuck off to take a quick shower, and before I knew it Rambo had his paws up on the side of the shower and then straight hopped into the shower with me!  He hates the bathtub, but he was so thirsty!  Alex came and got him out of the bathroom, and I got ready for bed and went to lay down with Rambo.  I could hardly sleep – I kept jerking awake, nervous, but fortunately he remained stable through the night.  This morning he still had the tiniest residual shiver and a mildly elevated heartbeat, but nothing like it was last night.

I had to work a half day, but luckily I got home right as Alex was leaving for work, so Rambo was supervised all day. I’m happy to report that we’ve done a lot of lying on the couch and relaxing, and he is pretty much back to his old self. He even brought me a toy to fetch a couple times, and he is bright eyed and a happy boy once again. I am SO grateful that he’s okay and going to make a full recovery, and that I have my little buddy by my side again.

On a much lighter but still stressful note, the Lucy-dog had her own issues this week.

Last Saturday while I was photographing my CSA veggies, one of the next-door neighbors’ chickens hopped the fence.  I heard a squabble and looked up to see Lucy holding the chicken down and frantically tearing it’s feathers out!

I scurried over and managed to pull Lucy off the chicken, and the chicken scampered over and huddled by the fence.  Rambo ran over to the chicken, smelled her, and walked away disinterested (thank goodness!).

I brought Lucy up to the back door, wiped the feathers and blood off her face and mouth, and shoved her inside, and I then went to take stock (ha, chicken stock) of the chicken’s injuries.  I scooped her up and looked her over – she was bleeding, but only from where her feathers had been torn out, and otherwise she looked okay. Her wings were intact and working fine, her legs were okay, her face and neck were okay, and she was definitely breathing fine.  I held her for a few minutes and stroked her head, trying to calm her down, and then I placed her back over the chain-link fence into the chicken run.  She was definitely in a bit of shock (totally standing there like “what. the. f*$%?! for a minute), but she walked back to the coop without any problems.  I texted my neighbor to let him know what happened, and thankfully she’s fine.

Between these two crazies, my blood pressure has had quite the roller coaster ride this week!  Sheesh.  :)

And now, for some peanut butter winners!

Winner #1 – chosen per random.org – #7, Errign from Errign’s Adventures.

And winner #2 – chosen by Alex via text message – #23, Sarah from Sarah Learns.

Congrats, ladies!  I’ll email you in a sec to confirm your peanut butter choice and cookie choice.  And stay tuned folks, I have another fun giveaway coming up some time next week.

<3 C