You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘puppy love’ category.
This year we purchased $200 chocolate for Easter. $223.06 to be exact.
It didn’t start out that way. John and I have never purchased Easter candy for one another and had no intention of doing so this year. But Wheeler had other plans. While we were at church yesterday, Wheeler devoured our guests’ two bags of chocolate chips, egg candies, a container of macaroons and some other miscellaneous Easter sundries. He left behind some shreds of chocolate chip bag and a soggy candy box (cardboard not to his liking).
Upon calling the emergency veterinary hospital, I learned that this much chocolate is “highly toxic” to our 70 pound lump of stupid. I was instructed to give him a tablespoon of peroxide to induce vomiting and bring him in right away. As I cried on the way to the hospital with the dog, feeling responsible for not protecting him from dangerous foods, John said, “This is just one o those Marley moments.”
One gallon of chocolate scented vomit on the car seat and a $223.06 veterinary bill later, our very black, chocolate-scented Labrador, alive and well and clueless about his brush with deadly chocolate, is safe and sound back home.
The doctor warned us that the medication he received may sedate him and that his stomach would likely be irritated. He spent his entire Easter Sunday behaving so poorly in front of our guests that I was in tears again by the end of dinner. Sedation? No. Irritated stomach? Not likely. Still stupid? Yes.
There’s nothing more fun than chasing John on a frozen lake. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this level of joy. I am jealous.
Our little piece of insanity. Our toy-chewing machine. Our failure of a seeing-eye dog. Our goofy, garbage eater.
And then it was home…
On our nightly walk last night, Bella had a run in with a copperhead in the lawn outside our house. I was walking her on a leash and didn’t even see the thing until she jumped out of the way. I had no idea it bit her until she started limping. I ran in the house to grab my husband and we took a photo. Of course, we googled snakes and made a guess that we might be dealing with a copperhead, one of our local venemous snakes.
The Actual Snake
So Bella made an emergency trip to the vet last night. By the time we got there, maybe 30 minutes after the bite, her foot was already swollen to twice its normal size. Having no experience with venemous snakes, I truly feared for her life and burst into tears when the vet positively identified our snake as a copperhead. Although I know I’m attached to my little Bella, I didn’t realize until yesterday how truly destroyed I would be if I lost her. And I don’t handle emergency room scenes well, even in an animal hospital.
Turns out, copperheads are the least dangerous of the “pit vipers”. Apparently, we are lucky it was not a rattlesnake. Bella has been treated with morphine, painkillers, IV fluids, and antibiotics. She spent the night at the hospital and came home this afternoon. She’s so incredibly swollen that her shaved paw is bigger than her hairy paw. The swelling has spread into her leg and chest making her nearly unable to walk. And they say it gets worse before it gets better. She is one sick puppy…again.
This doesn't even do it justice 
This all makes me feel like the world’s worst dog owner. She’s eaten chocolate and chewed on fish bones in the last few months. Now, I’ve walked her into a venemous snake.
I really need to teach Bella the difference between “lay down” and “go lay down.” This is important. For example, when she is sitting with her butt on the back of the couch and her front feet on my shoulder, if I say “lay down,” she lays down, right there, nose on my cheek. Now, with “go lay down” she might actually lay down someplace reasonable like, oh I don’t know, on a non-human surface. But her little pea size brain can’t differentiate so I will have to get used to her laying across my chest, licking my chin, and expecting a reward for her very good behavior.
I wanted to write something meaningful and heartfelt about my love for Bella.
But for now, I am in love with this face…
Bows make everything cuter.
