If it Has a Distinct Smell, I Will Eat It.

July 10th, 2009 at 8:42pm

I’m sure most of you have suffered through the puppy phase where they will basically chew on anything that they can get their mouth around. Of course there are the typical favorites like shoes and the legs of kitchen stairs. Our Australian Shepherd, Mittsy wasn’t much different in the early days. This chewing phase lasted about 8 months.

Even after the teething phase wore off, she would always find something new to chew on. We were only able to control what she had available to her by using pet gates to limit her access.

You know how there are exceptions to every rule right? Well Mittsy’s cullinary plan seemed to defy every rule written about dangerous items for dogs to ingest.

Apparently chocolate is at the top of the dangerous list. Yet chocolate was always a favorite for Mittsy. She especially loved Easter time and would have her own Easter egg hunt looking for some misplaced chocolate items. It didn’t matter much whether there were wrappers on the chocolates, because they would simply become part of the meal.

Oh yes, she would be ill the next day, but she would shake that off in no time and be back on the hunt soon after. I guess the short lived stomach pains were worth the taste treat.

Mittsy’s next favorite food was lipstick, the redder the better. Mittsy had mostly black fur, except for around her paws and face. Needless to say, it was real easy to spot when she had found a lipstick tube to chew on. Our daughters never seemed to learn, as they would always leave their lipstick somewhere that was easy access for Mittsy.

I don’t know how many times we had to try to remove red lipstick from our beige carpets. It would often take more than a few passes of the carpet cleaner to get it all out. The question for my wife and I was whether we should be trying to train Mittsy or our kids about the issues with lipstick and chocolate. Of course there is always the handy pet gate.

Our biggest surprise however, was yet to come.

One long August week-end our whole family (including Mittsy) was invited to a friend’s cottage. It was a great cottage on a beautiful lake. There were several country acres for the dogs (Mittsy and two others) to roam about in. The dogs were having a great time together.

As usual, the weekend was a smashing success with beautiful sunny days, warm water and great company. Unfortunately it came time to start packing up for home. I guess the act of packing was some sort of sign to Mittsy that she had better feed up for the long trip home.

The first course was a rare find for Mittsy, a full French loaf. The tradition for the weekend was always to have the departing meal to be an Italian feast. One of the families had brought the french loaf and had left it sitting on their bedroom night table. Unfortunately Mittsy was now ready for the entree.

Believe it or not, I had gone into the cottage looking for a frisbee when something caught my eye out of the cottage’s back window. There was Mittsy chewing on anything she could find in our friend’s compost heap …yuck.

I managed to chase her away from her compost delight, but within half an hour or so, Mittsy became very ill. Every breath from her mouth was steaming in the air, even though it was a 90 degree day.

It would be four hours before we got back to civilization, and we thought by starting the trek as soon as possible, we could get Mittsy to a vet before nightfall. We finsihed packing the car, said our goodbyes and headed out.

I’m sure you think you can imagine what our trip home was like, but I really doubt that you could. Mittsy was sick several times, and each time the smell was overwhelming. In order to keep ourselves and the children from being sick as well, we would have to stop the car, get out and breathe some fresh air, work up some courage to get back into the car, and head out for the next stretch.

I guess she did a good job purging herself, because by the time we got home, Mittsy was raring to go and was running around our yard looking for something to play with, or eat.

We watched her closely, made sure she had lots of fresh water to drink and marveled at the dog with the iron gut. It was like she was saying to us “I told you I could eat anything”.