Oh, That Dog

Sometimes I call him DD (Dieter Dog), but then sometimes he's DDD (Dastardly Dieter Dog). For the past couple of days Dieter's been at a DDD rating. It's a little like the Homeland Security Advisory System: We are on a high DDD alert today....

A couple days ago, Lloyd came home at lunchtime--thinking maybe DDD would be calmer if he had some human interaction during the day. He made himself a microwave lunch--pasta and some sauce. He snipped open the sauce packet and set it down to reach for the pasta. You know where this is going..."I think I'll taste-test this sauce for dad," says DDD. I don't think Dieter got much at all, but I don't think Lloyd's lunch was quite what he'd expected. Who wants pasta with slimy dog spit topping? Dieter also has a thing for my vanilla coffee creamer. I keep it in the bottom shelf in the refrigerator and DDD always seems to manage to slobber all over the container before I can get the door shut. I have the most-washed coffee creamer container in all of Chicagoland.

Yesterday morning I noticed I had a broken nail, so I reached for the nail clippers I keep in a (low) drawer. Dieter immediately pounced and grabbed a foam toe cushion (it's a foam tube you cut to the appropriate size to fit over your toe so your shoe doesn't rub it). "Mmm. Chewy," said DDD. From there it sort of devolved into a Keystone Cops escapade. The humans tried to head off the dog, who is much faster and wilier than his human pals. I'm flapping my arms and shrieking:  "Dieter. DIETER. Drop it." Naturally Dieter views the whole event as a big game: "Oh boy, mom AND dad are chasing me."

Of course you know what happened next. DDD swallowed the foam bit before we could get it out of his mouth. Now it wasn't all that big, but Lloyd said "We'd better call the vet." He said a few other things, but I won't repeat them in a public venue.

Thinking of all the things I could eat.

I'm sure the people at Warrenville Grove Animal Hospital love our calls. They're always very nice about answering our questions, and once, when I was apologizing for bugging them, the woman said: Hey, he's a puppy. They do stupid things. This time, the woman who answered it ran it by the vet. He said: it'll most likely pass with no problem. Just watch him.

"What am I watching for, exactly," I ask? Vomiting, diarrhea (oh no--see my earlier blog about this fun bodily function), and not eating. So far, so good. DDD is his usual self, so chalk up another doggie learning experience.

It's like Lloyd said: it's like having a kid. A big furry, bitey one, who eats foam toe thingies.