Canine extraction
Things to do: See a dog vomit. check
BEN POGGEMILLER STAFF
Joey gave us quite a scare the other day. Joey is my girlfriend’s two-year-old Bichon who likes licking his paws, running in circles, and being a total doofus. I tell him he’s a doofus, but he doesn’t listen. Just so there’s no suspense whatsoever, I’ll tell you now that nobody dies.
While removing all traces of Christmas from their house, my girlfriend’s mom emptied out a dish of red and green M&Ms that were previously in a completely different area of the house from the doofus into a Ziploc bag. My girlfriend and I promptly started consuming them on the couch. Joey, who is always enamoured with everything that we do, ran over to investigate. He then proceeded to give us the most pitiful look and that he was the saddest dog in the world and he would simply die if he didn’t get any M&Ms. In a firm but loving voice we said, “No, Joey.” It’s a shame they never taught him English or this whole disaster would have been averted. Her mom left the house and after a while, we started talking about school, and Joey had some interesting comments on that. “Arf Arf!” he would say. Fascinating. I asked my girlfriend what textbook she used for history and if I could possibly borrow it. She wasn’t sure if she still had it, and leaving the bag of candy on the computer desk, we went upstairs to look for it and left the white menace all alone.
We had been up there for a very short time when her mom came home:
Slam. Thump, thump, thump. Gasp. “LISAAAAAAA!”
We ran downstairs to find Joey with plastic still in his mouth, and red and green dye all over his face. He looked at us with the most innocent look, yet he was clearly unapologetic. He was convinced that if he didn’t get some chocolate he would die. After making some emergency phone calls, a decision was reached. Even though it was milk chocolate and he’d probably be alright, it would be best if we could get it out of him. This made me very excited because I had never seen a dog throw up before. Before long, their neighbour was over, and she brought a squirting syringe with peroxide in it. It was my job to hold him while they pried open his mouth. Needless to say he hated it. I put him down and he started coughing and walking funny. The neighbour crouched down, syringe still in hand. Joey, immediately forgetting that it was this device that caused all his current misery, edged up to it, smelled the syringe, and quickly backed away showing his teeth. He did this several more times and it was, quite frankly, hilarious. Yet he still hadn’t vomited.
So we started asking him if he could pretty please throw up all over the kitchen floor. I’m sure my girlfriend would have killed me on this spot if I mentioned this at the time because she was still extremely worried, but there was something extremely comical about four people coaxing, begging, pleading, for this dog to throw up. He started coughing again and we all lit up with anticipation. Sure enough, he expelled his stomach contents all over the kitchen floor. We exalted him and praised his name. “Yay, Joey! Good boy!” This celebration was short lived because somebody had to stop him from eating it off of the floor.
For the rest of the day Joey was feeling fine but he seemed a bit traumatized. He moped around all night, tired from his exhausting day. Maybe after a few more times, he’ll learn to hate the word “peroxide” and we can use it to make him stop whatever he’s doing. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him that day. He’s the best friend you could ever have and he loves you unconditionally. What a doofus.
