About six weeks ago, Yan and I spent a rare Saturday night out where we didn't return to our apartment till past midnight. (This actually has nothing to do with me being pregnant but with the fact that we know almost no one in London.) When we returned home, our beagle and our dachshund-lab greeted us at the door as usual, though the beagle seemed sluggish. I kept mentioning to Yan how "sleepy" she was, thinking that getting home so late had aroused her from a deep slumber (because let's face it, she is a rather lazy dog). When I walked into the living room, however, I found a hard piece of plastic in her bed, followed by another one, and then another one... She had taken an entire brand-new bottle of Tums--it occurs to me that I talk about Tums so much on this website that I should really give it its own category--from the kitchen table, eaten through the hard plastic container, discarding the bits of plastic as she went, and devoured 74 Tums. God only knows why she left one token Tum behind.
As it was approaching 1 am and our regular vet's office takes call on a rotating basis (they close at normal business hours but one of them gets assigned to call, so you have to call them at home and wake them up with your emergency), I called one of those 24-hour emergency clinics instead. I had a feeling it wasn't very serious, since Tums is just calcium and powder but she was acting so sleepy that we were a little worried. They had never heard of such a thing but after consulting several poison books and manuals told me to keep an eye on her and that other than being a little constipated, she'd probably be fine. We had an appointment scheduled for her in the morning anyway, so we let her bunk with us and kept watch on her overnight. The next morning the vet gave her a thorough exam, called pet poison control just to be sure, and said to take her back in if she started vomiting. She didn't and we moved on.
A week or so later, when Chris and Beth were in town, we took them out to dinner and returned to find that Mandy (the beagle) had gotten into my purse, fished out three quarters of a bottle of Tums and devoured it (with much less plastic this time, I might add--she was going "pro"), along with half a chocolate bar Chris and Beth had left on the coffee table and maybe some stray ibuprofen in my bag. We were a bit worried about the combination of chocolate (which wasn't much), possible ibuprofen consumption (which didn't seem likely) and the Tums, so in spite of the fact that she had greeted us the door insanely proud of herself (bouncing off walls and generally showing off for our guests), we let her bunk with us again to keep an eye on her. She spent the entire night snoring and licking our faces, happy for the excuse to have her face in that close proximity with my husband's. After that, we were quite vigilant about the placement of the Tums around the house (the dog can jump! so it's a challenge) and she seemed to have lost the taste for her beloved Tums.
Except that we got home from dinner Saturday night and found an empty bottle of Tums in her bed, cap skillfully removed (only one set of bite marks in the lid this time, along with a single missing piece of plastic, which we also recovered from her bed), and the four remaining Tums missing.
Sigh.
As I type this (at 3:45 in the morning; having a bit of insomnia), Mandy sleeps peacefully in our bedroom, while Simon, our Wonder Dog, keeps vigil with me. They both actually sleep in the bedroom with us now (there was a brief period when they slept in the living room because my pregnancy allergies were so bad) but Simon is my constant companion as usual. The beagle is snoring her little heart out in the scene of the crime, her dog bed. The Tums are tucked safely in the medicine cabinet.
lol!
My in-law's dog recently got into my brother-in-law's stomach medicine (he used to get bad acid reflux). The in-laws flipped out, called poison control, (which basically told them that a kid of that dog's weight would be ok with the medicine she took) and everything turned out ok... but it was a bit of funny drama.
Posted by: Marcy | Monday, 02 July 2007 at 03:41 AM
Hi!! How is poor Mandy doing? She really has a Tums problem... maybe you ought to check her into rehab?
Posted by: kate | Monday, 09 July 2007 at 09:13 AM