What a DOGGIE Experience we just had!!!

We just experienced the weirdest thing ever with the dog. I've never really said much about our dog on here. She's a cute little beagle. Well, sometimes she's cute. Other times she just grates our nerves. She's been a little sick the past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago last Thursday, I came home and she was laying on the floor. That is odd for her, as she's usually on the couch or loveseat, or on her pillow or in her crate. She was laying in the middle of the floor with her head stretched out on top of her front legs. I said hi to her as I was walking in the door. She didn't move. In fact, she was laying there shaking and whining, but wouldn't get up. So, I start freaking out. I immediately think she's had a stroke or something and is now paralyzed. (Yeah, I know, I'm a little dramatic at times!) I try calling my husband at work and then on his cell phone. No answer. Then I call the vet. As I'm talking to the receptionist I tell her how Lucy is acting. She tells me to see if she'll eat and/or drink. While I'm talking to the vet's office, Lucy decides to get up and start walking around. I get off the phone with her and Lucy is laying on her pillow, still shaking and whining a little bit. She seemed scared. So, I bring her food to her, and put it under her nose. Nothing. In the meantime, husband calls back and asks what's wrong. I tell him and he says, "Yeah, this morning I had to stand her up to get her to go out. She also ate one of my shoestrings up to the eyelet on my boot." Huh?? That might have been good to know to tell the vets office. So I tell him to hurry home. I call the vets office. They say to bring her to the office and drop her off. The vet on call is in surgery and will look at her once he gets out. I then tell her about the shoestring. Evidently, this is the only words they heard. This is not the first time she's eaten his shoestrings. When we lived in Cincinnati, she completely de-laced two boots and ate both shoestrings WHOLE! (And they came out whole too, so my husband says!) So, I get a call a little after 7:00 that night, and the doctor says they've taken X-rays, and the shoestring isn't causing a problem. He was giving her an anti-inflammatory and watching her overnight. Told us to call around noon to see how she was doing. Jason called and they said she was doing better and wanted to keep her until he got of work. She was put on restricted activity. No jumping, no long walks, no walks without a leash (not that we do that anyway...she is a beagle...her nose rules where she goes!) So he goes to pick her up and they've given her a prescription for steroids. So, we give them to her and she is starting to feel better. (At this point, we're starting to question the $200 we spent on her overnight stay at the vet's office.)

So a few days later, actually like a week and a couple of days later, she finally throws up and there is the shoe lace. It doesn't digest or pass. Too weird. Once the steroids were gone, she started feeling a little mopey. So I called the vet and he put her on three more days of steroids. She seemed to feel better instantly.

Well, the last few nights, she's been acting really, REALLY needy. I mean up in everyone's face at every possible moment. She also acts like she's never been fed. So, today I come in and feed her just like normal. Jason comes home and then takes her for a walk. He comes in and plays with her a bit, cause it's been a while, and she finally lays down on her pillow and decides playtime is over. So we decide we're going out to eat dinner.

We're gone, maybe an hour, hour and a half. We come home. Jason opens the door while I check the mail. All I hear is J yelling, "BAD DOG!" I come in and Lucy has drug his 30# plus tackle bag 20 feet across the room, tore into a couple of the pouches and ate like 5 packs of artificial bait!!! I couldn't believe she ate so much. So, Jason decides we needed to call the vets office. Of course, it's after hours. We hope it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg. After spending $200 at the last visit, I couldn't imagine how much it would be. When the doctor finally got to the phone, he said that we needed to give her 5cc of hydrogen peroxide every 2-3 minutes until we induced vomiting. After about three or four times of that, she finally upchucked. It was gross, but yet very fascinating. Don't know why, I'm just really weird that way. I took photos, cause I scrapbook everything. I was gonna post pictures of her, and the stuff she threw up, but decided against it. I have some family that look at my blog, and I don't want them thinking I'm even weirder than they already thought! So no pictures. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. ~Kim

P.S. While I was looking online to see if bait was poisonous to dogs, I found this online forum that had some funny stories. I googled Dog Ate Bait and came up with it. After we got Lucy to vomit and cleaned up, we sat down and had a good laugh. Here's the site.