Rough night (graphic)

The dog almost died. Everyone probably knows that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. I knew that too. But did you know there are differences in the toxicity of the different kinds of chocolate? I do now. For the record, baker's chocolate and semi-sweet are far worse for dogs than milk chocolate.

At about 10 pm last night, I was reading in bed when Miss D. got up from her spot snuggled into my side, walked over to the edge of the bed and promptly barfed all down the side of the bed. Then she walked over to the other side of the bed and barfed over the edge there as well. She hopped down and skedaddled since upchucking off the bed is on the short list of big no-nos she keeps in her long term memory. Expecting the usual half digested dog-food, I got up and headed out to the kitchen to get the clean-up supplies.

Well, when I got back in the bedroom, I had to turn all the lights on to look closely at the vomit because it was terribly dark and I was worried that it was bloody. Not bloody, but when my nose was close to it (other pet owners will appreciate that carefully checking out bodily fluids is one of those things you never thought you'd do for another creature unless you went into a medical profession of some sort but that you do out of concern for the four legged loves in your life) I got a distinct whiff of chocolate. Obviously not good. And a little baffling since I don't keep chocolate in the house (if it's here, I eat it, which isn't very friendly when trying to work on my weight).

The dog continued to vomit every hour or less all night long and I tried to wrack my brain over where she could have found chocolate. (I'll admit I was a little jealous she found it instead of me!) I washed absolutely everything on the bed, including the bedskirt. I washed three seperate sets of sheets and countless towels. Everything was covered in slimy chocolate, including, at one point, poor D. he came home in the midst of my first set of laundry, helped me re-make the bed, and climbed in, immediately crashing into sleep after suggesting that the dog should perhaps be locked in her crate for the night.

I was afraid she'd have a seizure or die if I did that to her so I kept her next to me. She re-paid me by turning and emptying the contents of her stomach all down D.'s bare back when she needed to vomit at around 2:30 in the morning. I have never seen my husband move so fast in my life. The man went from lying down sacked out asleep to standing bolt upright at his dresser trying to catch the slide of the yuck so it didn't hit the floor in about one nanosecond. It seemed unkind to laugh but I was so dead tired and slap-happy at that point, I got hysterical. The vomiting finally stopped at around 5:30 this morning although I may have the carpet stains to last a lifetime.

Being the good pet owner I am, I called my brother-in-law (a vet cardiologist) and sister (also a vet) to find out if I needed to take my now vomit-free but decidedly lethargic dog into our local vet. When A. asked me what she ate, I still didn't know. It was only after he mentioned baker's chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate that the lightbulb finally went on for me. Looked in the pantry and lo and behold, the bag of semi-sweet chips I bought for a recipe was missing. Somehow my children have sweets radar. They weren't home when I bought the chips. They weren't home when I made the dessert. And we had it at someone else's house. And yet somehow they knew that edible chocolate of some sort had crossed the threshold of the house and they pirated it. Given the medium badness of semi-sweet chocolate on the desperately bad scale of doggie chocolate poisoning, off to the vet we went.

Poor Miss D. spent the day there hooked up to IV fluids and she got several injections. She is going to be fine and hopefully won't suffer any neurological damage from this little episode (although as my sweet fur face is already dumber than a box of rocks, I'm not sure how we'll determine the extent of any damage). I have, however, made sure to inflict a bit of psychological suffering on the chocolate thief. Turns out W. had swiped the chips and stashed them up on his closet shelf but since he didn't replace the rubber band on the bag after eating a portion of the spoils, the bag opened and spilled a bit on his closet floor, aka doggie candyland. Here's hoping the guilt trip will keep the rest of the chips in the bag and W. out of the pantry searching for and sneaking contraband food. 'Cause I'd sure hate to replace the pantry door handle with one that has a lock on it. But that would be infinitely cheaper than another life-threatening vet visit!

And now, I'm headed to bed to try and catch up on a few of the eight hours I missed sleeping last night. At least until the dog starts having diarrhea later tonight, which the vet tells me is pretty much a foregone conclusion. ::sigh:: Good thing all those towels are clean again so I can carpet my room and my bed with them before I slip off to the land of nod.