Dogs are idiots

So this entry is side stepping the weird things about me for a moment so I can wax poetic about my idiot dog.

We adopted our dog over a year ago from the local humane society. She's a mix of a variety of breeds; when we visit the pet store many people like to guess what she is. In my opinion she definitely has some boxer in her, as she has the characteristic brindle coat with white paws and a white chest. However she's missing the square face typically seen in that breed. The humane society believed her to be a mix with pit bull, however it's hard to say. Plus most people, even professionals, cannot successfully identify a pit bull. (http://love-a-bull.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/find-a-bull1.pdf)

Our dog is a sweetheart and is easy going in most cases except one: when we leave the house. When we first adopted her, we let her roam the house with no problems. One day we came home and she had ate an entire white cake off the counter. She also had a stomach of steel since she didn't even throw any of it up or was even seriously affected by it.

We figured, our bad, so we made sure to keep cakes off the counters and any other foods. Then she got into the dirty dishes, a lunchbox, and the recycling bin... We locked her in the bedroom to chill. Again, she was fine, until one random day she decided to rip up the comforter. She also did something similar at my parent's house. Left her all day in their bedroom for some holiday and she was fine. The next day we left for an hour to go to the grocery? She obliterated the down comforter, feathers were everywhere.

After that we started confining her to her crate which she HATES. Absolutely detests. She will run as far away as possible to avoid the crate. We've smeared peanut butter in there, thrown in treats, even tried to get her in there when we weren't leaving and she would have none of it. It was a bit of a hassle to go get her and carry her to the crate. Also, since she hated it so much, I felt bad putting her in there to begin with.

Eventually we decided to give the bedroom another go, but this time leave the radio on (NPR, lots of voices). Things seemed to be going well. No ripping anything up, she didn't mind that much getting put in there, etc.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. One day we came home after work and she was sleeping on the couch, rather than being safely ensconced in our bedroom. ??? Somehow she figured out how to get out of the bedroom. We have doors with the lever handles, but the door opens into the room. Very mysterious. Perhaps it was a fluke, so I put her in there again when I went off to pilates for an hour.

Came home and found her at the door, waiting to greet me. What the?! So far, all of her escapes had led to no destruction, she was just chilling out in the living room.

The next time we left, we barricaded her in the room, using a bin in front of the door. We were gone for about 7 hours and she was still in the room when we came back. Success!

Yesterday we went out for a couple of hours, did the same set up, and came home to find DISASTER!

The previous day I had made a couple of batches of delicious chocolate chocolate chip cookies. We packed them in tupperware and left them on the counter. There was also a half pan of brownies covered with tin foil on the counter.

We came home to find our happily wagging dog at the door and annihilated cookies all over the floor. She pulled down all four containers of cookies and ripped them all open (thanks for ruining the tupperware) and went to town on them. Ate about a complete batch and there were still some in their mangled containers, suggesting that we may have caught her in mid-chow down. I also noticed a piece of tin foil on the floor, which reminded me of the brownies. Mysteriously, the brownie pan was completely missing. It took us a while to find it, but it had gotten wedged under the couch, of course, completely empty.

We called up the emergency vet for advice (it was a Sunday). This is not the first time she has inhaled large quantities of chocolate. About 6 months or so ago she also ate an entire bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, though for that quantity we didn't need to bring her in. This time, due to the unsweetened bakers chocolate found in both the cookies and the brownies, on top of the chocolate chips also in the cookies and brownies, we decided to take her in.

Luckily, the office visit was 79 dollars, which could have been a lot worse. Our reg vet charges about 50 dollars. They induced vomiting for $90. She puked up 3.5 pounds of chocolate goo. I think the vet was impressed. They also gave her some charcoal stuff that binds to any poison remaining to help her pass it for about $55 dollars. Long story short, she's fine. She woke us up a few times to pee and poop last night, but no throwing up (unlike the chocolate chip incident) and she's fine this morning.

Our dog is an idiot with a craving for chocolate. What is with dogs consuming very dangerous things? We leave all types of food on the counter. There's bananas, cuties, a big container of granola, dirty dishes, oils, etc. and she ignores them. She ignores them for days, but as soon as she smells chocolate, she goes nuts. Not only that, but when we took her to the vet, nothing bad had happened yet. So my dog just inhaled a bunch of delicious chocolate, got to go for a car ride (which she loves), and meet new people (which she loves). I feel like if I have to spend large quantities of money and take you to the hospital, you should look miserable, not like you're having the time of your life!!

My parents' dog is equally ridiculous. When she gets upset she eats carpet. Not only is that very weird, but you'd think after the first or second time of trying to pass carpet and being induced to vomit it up, she'd learn not to eat it. But no, inexplicably, they keep consuming it. I can't even smell raspberry vodka after a drinking binge left me vomiting all night, but the dogs of the world seem to have no problems in that area.

That being said, my dog has to just look at me with her cute eyes and her wagging tail and I remember why I got the dog in the first place.