Bed frames, Bully Sticks and Begonias, Oh MY!
My heart still bleeding from the painful loss of my Bully mix, Fanny a few months ago, I decided that the remedy was to take in a foster dog to help heal; that is a story for another time, so as always, I will digress…
Suffice it to say, that based on my knowledge and paranoia of the many dangers that lurk for my pets and those of my clients, I knew that if nothing else, I was prepared to set up an environment that would, keep this little “half-bug, half-dog” creature ,very safe until a forever home could be found for him.
After writing that Pulitzer-worthy piece last month on how to keep pets safe, I was feeling pretty competent, that is, until this little alien set his claws in my home.
The rescue sent him off with a goodie bag, more like a good riddance bag, in my opinion. Lots of stuffy toys, balls and a few bully sticks, because they said that he loves to chew. I asked if he ever choked on these and they said that he chews them down to a little nub and then they remove them. Well, this was good news to have these sticks in my arsenal of things to occupy his active brain.
While chilling out in the backyard, with the intent of letting the little guy settle into his half-way home, I pulled out one of his favorite bully sticks and before I had a moment to slowly offer it to him, he leaped, like a frog grabbing a fly, and swallowed the stick, whole!!! And all I could think of was that he had only been in my “expert” care for a few hours, and now I was either going to be performing the Heimlich or rushing him to the ER veterinary clinic to have the stick surgically removed. Well, he didn’t choke and fortunately, he was able to digest this edible stick.
In the past I’ve had dogs that have chewed the baseboards, eaten poop, as well as gnawed through their harness, but the remedies are relatively easy to implement using good supervision, removal of objects that they’re likely to chew/eat and of course making sure I was giving them other things to meet their needs. So imagine my chagrin when out for a brief walk, this guy pulled all the way down the street, his little alien nose close to the ground, like a bloodhound on the scent, looking for flower pedals to eat! And “eat” is being kind; in actuality, he is able to unhinge his huge jaw like a snake so in addition to flowers, he can also swallow peanuts and the shells, that our squirrel-loving neighbors feed the vermin that fly, crawl or climb around their yard. The other day, I had to wrestle a hard, round, nubby green thing out of his mouth, that I was told was a horse chestnut! I’m telling you anything he finds is a delicacy!
Okay, so I realized quickly that his was not the average dog and I’d have to up my tactical skills where I had eyes on him constantly and when I couldn’t, he’d have to be confined, such as when I feed him in his crate. But this one time, I had dropped a few morsels of food near his crate, so after he ate breakfast, I opened the crate so that he could finish eating what I had dropped. While he was picking the food off the floor, I turned my back to grab my broom and dust pan to tidy up after him. In a mili-second, he disappeared, and suddenly while I couldn’t see him, I heard scratching noise like a little rat, coming from under my bed…OMG, as impossible as it seemed, he, with his bowling-ball- sized head, managed to crawl under my 2- ton canopy bed, its frame only 5 inches off the ground, to look for more food; to my horror, he could not crawl out!
So with panic setting in, as this bed cannot be lifted with one person, I figured I’d have to call the fire department to use a car jack to extract him. Fortunately, I engaged my (very few) brain cells and placed a non-skid mat partway under the bed so he could gather traction while pulling himself out to eat the food I placed on the other side of the mat. His body defies physics with his massive head, and huge ribcage; yet he made it out when the motivation was something he could snarf down!
I never thought I’d be “Livin’ la Vida Loca”, but that’s happens when you sign up to foster a little alien bugger!
Now, when I share my expertise with pet-parents, I have to prepare them for all these new situations that they could face… Bed frames, bully sticks and begonias, oh my!
HAPPY TRAINING & ENRICHMENT
© Fran Berry CPDT-KA, UW-AAB all rights reserved 2024
