When Drew and I adopted our dog Max from the shelter in
February, friends and family members
reacted with a smile, many commenting that he would be good practice for a
baby. We're certain Max will make an
excellent older brother for our son, especially after seeing the way he
interacts with our niece, who I'm sure Max knows in his head as "the
wobbly one who drops food." He
loves people and children (probably because of their sticky fingers) and has a
great temperament, but a bad habit of
eating just about everything except his own dog food.
This habit got the best of him and us last week, when Drew
and I had to make a late-night run to the store to buy more candy mix for the
cake pops I was making for our gender reveal party. We made the mistake of leaving a bowl of
bright pink melted candy on the counter.
When we got home the bowl was shattered on the floor and our dog was
throwing up a bright pink substance all over the house. Drew cleaned as I googled things like,
"how to get red kool-aide stains out of a beige carpet." The answer-
you don't.
Eventually, Max's stomach calmed down and we assumed the
worst was over. We were wrong.
More than a day and a half after he'd eaten what we thought
was just candy, Max coughed up a chunk of the porcelain bowl about a half-inch
long. I stared at the pool of vomit and
broken bowl in the middle of my living room, shocked. I looked at my dog. He stared back, relieved. It was 6 a.m. I loaded him into the car with
some blankets and drove to the emergency vet.
We waited for about a half hour next to a Golden Retriever
who had transmission fluid for breakfast, and went in for X-rays. Luckily, the piece he coughed up was the
largest piece of bowl in his bowel. The
vet said the rest would pass, and we were told to keep a close eye on Max and
everything that came out of him for the next several days. Seeing as how most of what came out of him
required me to mop the floor, we had no choice but to bear witness to every
aspect of my poor dog's dysfunctional digestive system until it returned to
normal. Thankfully, Max is all better
now and my kitchen floors are sparkling
from more mopping than I think I've done since we moved in.
I know when we have our baby boy, I'll get used to cleaning
just about everything. I'm sure there
will be more early mornings, late nights, more mopping. He'll get sick, he'll eat things that aren't
food, he'll probably even stick them up his nose. We'll spend even more on him than a $400 vet
bill. Maybe Max is doing us a favor,
prepping us for what's to come. Right
now he's sitting next to my desk chair playing with his stuffed bunny and I can
tell you truthfully he's so cute I won't even remember all that mopping a few weeks from
now. That's what I'm taking away from
this experience.
And if you'd like a $400 cake pop, there are still a couple
of leftovers in the fridge. Max can tell you, they're delicious.
