Dog Drama

Quiet Easter. Not. On Saturday afternoon I decided to put in an hour’s work in the veg patch. The dogs came with me. While I was digging a trench to plant my potatoes, Dottie went off and found a stick and came back to sit and wait patiently for me to throw it for her. Mabel wandered off for a sniff and to obsess through the fence at my pet rabbits on the other side. 

I paid no attention until some walkers went past on the footpath and they started barking (the dogs that is).  I looked up and saw a speck of blue on Mabel’s lip.  On closer inspection, I realised, with horror, that it looked like a pellet of rodent poison.  Roy had laid a row of mouse poison in a trench between his pea plants and not told me.  Aaargh!!

Grabbing the dogs, we ran back to the house where I washed out Mabel’s mouth and checked to see if Dottie had eaten any too. Without boring you with the details, within an hour I’d taken Mabel to the vet and she was back at home feeling very sorry for herself, having been induced to vomit, bringing up several spoonfuls of poison in the process. She is now dosed up to the eyeballs on vitamin K and, thankfully, seems to be fine. 

Roy on the other hand is quite beside himself with guilt and remorse at his own lack of common sense.   He adores Mabel, so I figure his guilt is probably punishment enough. But I’m acutely aware that I wouldn’t be anywhere near as forgiving had Mabel come a cropper. In fact Roy would probably be being force-fed Rat-O-Kill by the spoonful!

Obviously my quiet Easter weekend has been spent in a neurotic frenzy – monitoring Mabel for any signs of internal bleeding and keeping a close eye on Dottie too – just in case. In real terms this meant that the dogs have slept soundly each night (on the bed of course) while I’ve slept fitfully – waking every hour or so to check they are both still breathing. After two nights of this ridiculous behaviour even the dogs are starting to look pissed off with me.