So first, let's state the obvious: I'm an inconsistent blogger who is absolutely incapable of blogging every day. Heck, it seems I'm not even capable of blogging every week! In my defense, I worked more in the months of March and April than I have ever worked in my life. Does that make up for it? I didn't think so. Moving right along...
My lack of blogging has even caused me to stop reading other people's blogs because it was only making me feel worse about the fact that they were keeping up with their blogs and I wasn't keeping up with mine. Waahhhh! So, today is the day where I dive back in. What to talk about, what to talk about...
Why don't I tell you about my day? The good news is, if you're not interested in hearing about my day, you can simply X out of this browser. It's much easier to shut me up virtually than it is in person. :) For those of you who think you're interested in hearing about my day, continue reading but let me warn you, you might not really want to know.
The day started off most like every day in Cleveland lately. Lots and lots of rain and all the things you had hoped to get accomplished outside (pulling weeds, rototilling dirt, spraying weed killer, etc.) were not possible and all the things you did NOT want to get accomplished, like doing 50 million loads of laundry, were pretty much forced upon you. Tthanks a lot Mother Nature - I would flick you in the ear if I could.
So that's what I have been doing. Lots and lots of laundry. Pat was working out in the garage on my plant stand (more on that later) and I was in the basement trying to be domestic. After a few hours, Pat came inside to tell me that he was heading to home depot to get some more wood. I responded with "that's what she said" (no joke, that is really what I said. I am not mature) and then he left. I went back to folding and sorting clean clothes. About 20 minutes later, I went upstairs to put some of the clean clothes away.
When I got up to the kitchen, I was greeted with an old toothbrush and a piece of paper on my kitchen floor. Very random and quite interesting, I thought to myself. I proceeded to walk around the corner to find a trail of kleenex, tissue paper, clothes tags and many other miscellaneous items all leading to our bathroom. I knew instantly what had happened and that this wasn't a good situation.
The bathroom door had been left open and Grady had been in the trash. Seems like normal dog behavior and nothing to panic about, right? Well, maybe for you. Maybe when your dog gets into the trash he or she just shreds some items and drags them around the house. But we all know that Grady is not your "average dog." He doesn't chew. He swallows. Whole. In large quantities.
When I got to the bathroom I found that the garbage can that was once completely full this morning was now almost completely empty. Unfortunately, the trail of items leading to the bathroom only made up for about half of the original contents. The other half were all in Grady's stomach. Again, this is not a good situation. Every awful thing that you can imagine being in the garbage can - was. There was WAY too much stuff for a dog, even of Grady's size, to try and pass. There were paper products, plastic products, wrappers and much more that I knew for a fact he had consumed. All I could think about was that once again, we would be tempting fate if we allowed Grady to try and pass all of this "stuff" on his own. I knew I needed to get all of this out of Grady's stomach before it entered his digestive system.
The first thing I did was call Pat at Home Depot to tell him about the situation and ask him why he left the bathroom door open when he left -you know, pretty much blaming the entire situation on him. Not my finest moment, I know. That seems to be a trend in our household - something goes wrong and I figure out a way to blame the husband. I'm working on that. Deep down, I knew the real person to blame was the one who looked at that overflowing trash can this morning thinking, "I should really empty that" and then did nothing about it. And that person was (drum roll please)... yours truly.
Anyway, after we got off the phone from our very pleasant conversation, I went straight to the computer and googled "using peroxide to induce vomiting in dog" or something along those lines. I had a former coworker whose dog also ate random, inappropriate things and I remembered her telling me that she used peroxide to force her dog to throw up and that it worked. I have never tried this with Grady before because we usually never catch him soon enough or know for sure whether he swallowed something he shouldn't have.
But this time I was well aware of all that he had swallowed and I knew that it had happened within the last 20 minutes. I was convinced that it was in Grady's best interest to throw it all up and not even risk him trying to digest it. So blinded by the fact that I felt like I had to get Grady to throw up immediately, I skimmed right over all the statements like, "inducing vomiting should be done only if instructed by your vet" and "the procedure can be hazardous." Instead I went right to the instructions. It said to give your dog 1 tsp. of 3% peroxide for every 10 pounds your dog weighs. So I measured 6 1/2 teaspoons and got the peroxide in a cup. When Pat got home moments later, I told him to open Grady's mouth so I could pour the peroxide down his throat.
After helping me, Pat wanted some more information about this peroxide method we were trying for the first time. I told him that according to the website, it would take about 10 minutes for Grady to start throwing up. I also started telling him about some of the possible side effects and warning signs we should watch for like, "there's a chance that once he starts throwing up he won't be able to stop and if that happens, we need to take him to an animal hospital right away" and "if he doesn't throw up the peroxide then we have another problem because it can't just stay in his body."
The side effects and warnings didn't seem too bad when I was skimming over them on the website, but it sure sounded bad as I was saying them out loud to Pat. And I didn't even mention the "potentially hazardous" part. When I finished talking, Pat looked at me in shock, as if I had just coerced him to help kill our dog. Then he started asking more questions about the risks and where there is even an emergency animal hospital near our house, which I didn't have an answer to. Then I started panicking. What had I just done to our dog? I really started to wonder (and worry) whether or not I had made the right choice with the peroxide. I started to cry and second guess myself.
We barricaded Grady in the kitchen on the hard wood floors so that the throw up would be easier to clean up - my first rational thought since all of this happened. Pat pointed out that it had already been five minutes and Grady wasn't showing any signs of getting sick. "This obviously isn't going to work," Pat said. I tried to ignore him and just kept rubbing Grady's belly. A few minutes later, he started gagging and the throw up began.
I'll spare you the details because I'm sure this has been graphic enough, but I will say the peroxide worked and he completely emptied out his stomach. Pat was absolutely shocked by how much came up and told me he had no idea Grady had eaten that much. He then told me he thought I had made the right decision with the peroxide. What a relief!
If by chance you are interested in seeing my picture of the day on my photo blog, which is a picture of Grady's throw up, click here. Sorry, it's graphic, I know. But I can't think of a better picture that accurately summarizes how I spent my day today.
Maybe I should be thanking Grady for providing me with some much needed blogging material. Maybe he sensed I was going through a dry spell and just wanted to do his part to help me get back on the blogging saddle again.
Or maybe, just maybe, he was given a huge head and only a small brain and no matter how many times he swallows crap whole and gets sick, he can't seem to figure out that maybe he should only eat that freaking expensive Iams food we give him!
If you are STILL wondering when Pat and I are going to begin having children, let this serve as another reminder that our family is just not ready for that kind of responsibility.
My lack of blogging has even caused me to stop reading other people's blogs because it was only making me feel worse about the fact that they were keeping up with their blogs and I wasn't keeping up with mine. Waahhhh! So, today is the day where I dive back in. What to talk about, what to talk about...
Why don't I tell you about my day? The good news is, if you're not interested in hearing about my day, you can simply X out of this browser. It's much easier to shut me up virtually than it is in person. :) For those of you who think you're interested in hearing about my day, continue reading but let me warn you, you might not really want to know.
The day started off most like every day in Cleveland lately. Lots and lots of rain and all the things you had hoped to get accomplished outside (pulling weeds, rototilling dirt, spraying weed killer, etc.) were not possible and all the things you did NOT want to get accomplished, like doing 50 million loads of laundry, were pretty much forced upon you. Tthanks a lot Mother Nature - I would flick you in the ear if I could.
So that's what I have been doing. Lots and lots of laundry. Pat was working out in the garage on my plant stand (more on that later) and I was in the basement trying to be domestic. After a few hours, Pat came inside to tell me that he was heading to home depot to get some more wood. I responded with "that's what she said" (no joke, that is really what I said. I am not mature) and then he left. I went back to folding and sorting clean clothes. About 20 minutes later, I went upstairs to put some of the clean clothes away.
When I got up to the kitchen, I was greeted with an old toothbrush and a piece of paper on my kitchen floor. Very random and quite interesting, I thought to myself. I proceeded to walk around the corner to find a trail of kleenex, tissue paper, clothes tags and many other miscellaneous items all leading to our bathroom. I knew instantly what had happened and that this wasn't a good situation.
The bathroom door had been left open and Grady had been in the trash. Seems like normal dog behavior and nothing to panic about, right? Well, maybe for you. Maybe when your dog gets into the trash he or she just shreds some items and drags them around the house. But we all know that Grady is not your "average dog." He doesn't chew. He swallows. Whole. In large quantities.
When I got to the bathroom I found that the garbage can that was once completely full this morning was now almost completely empty. Unfortunately, the trail of items leading to the bathroom only made up for about half of the original contents. The other half were all in Grady's stomach. Again, this is not a good situation. Every awful thing that you can imagine being in the garbage can - was. There was WAY too much stuff for a dog, even of Grady's size, to try and pass. There were paper products, plastic products, wrappers and much more that I knew for a fact he had consumed. All I could think about was that once again, we would be tempting fate if we allowed Grady to try and pass all of this "stuff" on his own. I knew I needed to get all of this out of Grady's stomach before it entered his digestive system.
The first thing I did was call Pat at Home Depot to tell him about the situation and ask him why he left the bathroom door open when he left -you know, pretty much blaming the entire situation on him. Not my finest moment, I know. That seems to be a trend in our household - something goes wrong and I figure out a way to blame the husband. I'm working on that. Deep down, I knew the real person to blame was the one who looked at that overflowing trash can this morning thinking, "I should really empty that" and then did nothing about it. And that person was (drum roll please)... yours truly.
Anyway, after we got off the phone from our very pleasant conversation, I went straight to the computer and googled "using peroxide to induce vomiting in dog" or something along those lines. I had a former coworker whose dog also ate random, inappropriate things and I remembered her telling me that she used peroxide to force her dog to throw up and that it worked. I have never tried this with Grady before because we usually never catch him soon enough or know for sure whether he swallowed something he shouldn't have.
But this time I was well aware of all that he had swallowed and I knew that it had happened within the last 20 minutes. I was convinced that it was in Grady's best interest to throw it all up and not even risk him trying to digest it. So blinded by the fact that I felt like I had to get Grady to throw up immediately, I skimmed right over all the statements like, "inducing vomiting should be done only if instructed by your vet" and "the procedure can be hazardous." Instead I went right to the instructions. It said to give your dog 1 tsp. of 3% peroxide for every 10 pounds your dog weighs. So I measured 6 1/2 teaspoons and got the peroxide in a cup. When Pat got home moments later, I told him to open Grady's mouth so I could pour the peroxide down his throat.
After helping me, Pat wanted some more information about this peroxide method we were trying for the first time. I told him that according to the website, it would take about 10 minutes for Grady to start throwing up. I also started telling him about some of the possible side effects and warning signs we should watch for like, "there's a chance that once he starts throwing up he won't be able to stop and if that happens, we need to take him to an animal hospital right away" and "if he doesn't throw up the peroxide then we have another problem because it can't just stay in his body."
The side effects and warnings didn't seem too bad when I was skimming over them on the website, but it sure sounded bad as I was saying them out loud to Pat. And I didn't even mention the "potentially hazardous" part. When I finished talking, Pat looked at me in shock, as if I had just coerced him to help kill our dog. Then he started asking more questions about the risks and where there is even an emergency animal hospital near our house, which I didn't have an answer to. Then I started panicking. What had I just done to our dog? I really started to wonder (and worry) whether or not I had made the right choice with the peroxide. I started to cry and second guess myself.
We barricaded Grady in the kitchen on the hard wood floors so that the throw up would be easier to clean up - my first rational thought since all of this happened. Pat pointed out that it had already been five minutes and Grady wasn't showing any signs of getting sick. "This obviously isn't going to work," Pat said. I tried to ignore him and just kept rubbing Grady's belly. A few minutes later, he started gagging and the throw up began.
I'll spare you the details because I'm sure this has been graphic enough, but I will say the peroxide worked and he completely emptied out his stomach. Pat was absolutely shocked by how much came up and told me he had no idea Grady had eaten that much. He then told me he thought I had made the right decision with the peroxide. What a relief!
If by chance you are interested in seeing my picture of the day on my photo blog, which is a picture of Grady's throw up, click here. Sorry, it's graphic, I know. But I can't think of a better picture that accurately summarizes how I spent my day today.
Maybe I should be thanking Grady for providing me with some much needed blogging material. Maybe he sensed I was going through a dry spell and just wanted to do his part to help me get back on the blogging saddle again.
Or maybe, just maybe, he was given a huge head and only a small brain and no matter how many times he swallows crap whole and gets sick, he can't seem to figure out that maybe he should only eat that freaking expensive Iams food we give him!
If you are STILL wondering when Pat and I are going to begin having children, let this serve as another reminder that our family is just not ready for that kind of responsibility.
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