dog virgin

Last night I heard that little cough familiar to mothers nestled in beds across the universe.  I stumbled out of my own nestle and wildly listened again.  First thing I thought was "it must be Lilly".  Lilly is eleven and here visiting. She's my son's best friend from first grade, who broke his heart when she moved to Rhode Island after third.  Somehow her mom, who has the most can-do attitude you've ever seen, and I ( who am kind of can-do myself...) managed to get Lilly to the southern tip of New Jersey for a few days. Now the reason I thought that it must be Lilly is that Lilly is famous for having christened both cars during drives to the mountains back when she lived in Denver. Plus, her mom had warned me that her stomach had been bothering her.  And despite this extremely clear warning, I did nothing to deter her from eating pizza for three meals running, followed by scads of candy compliments of Cam's cast party, along with some Mountain Dew left over from that event as well.

Oh God, Laura, are you reading this??  I'm shuddering as I recall the disgust in Mikey's voice when he talked about the family that served chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!  Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

Ok, back to that little cough.  If you haven't guessed from the title, Lilly was innocent as a lamb.  Augie, the doggie was the culprit.  But fancy this, like the toilet-trained cat in Meet The Parents, he had tried to make it to the john!  Puked all over that pretty little potty doormat I bought at Walmart before my mother-in-law came to visit.

So, even though I lived with one golden retriever or another for all of my 18 years at home, I had not one clue what to do.  Not one.  Well, one; I picked up the potty rug, gingerly wiped the mess into the toilet, and hot-footed it to the washer...all while Augie sat there wondering when I was going to figure out what to do.  So I got him downstairs, and he flew to the door, which is very unusual behavior for this dog who will put off the morning walk until afternoon if it means he can keep lying on the couch.

When it looked like he was trying to eat the stones (this is Stone Harbor, you know) I remembered one of my friends who is not a dog virgin, informing me that dogs eat grass to try to settle their stomachs.  What I didn't remember was if it worked.  Hmm.  So barefoot,in my version of pjs - ripped boxers & ancient cami, frantic dog on tangled leash we made our way over the fishing bridge to the nearest house with grass, which Augie dug into like a lion would a deer (at least on Lion King).

Back at our house, I ran inside for my computer to look up "vomiting dog" and returned to find all the neighbor's grass now on our stones.  Nice.  The google search led me to lots of scary scenarios which all seemed to involve scads of tests followed by death of the dog or bankruptcy of the owner. It just so happens that we have a vet appointment this morning, ostensibly so Augie can get a health certificate and a doggie downer to fly home on the plane with us this weekend.  Wonder how that's going to go?  Maybe I'll be staying in Stone Harbor after all.