OH MY DOG!

On the day of an old fashioned snow storm there’s a cinnamon roll recipe in the Press Herald. How good does that sound on a day when you don’t expect to go outside? The dough hooks were whirling away when the stand mixer suddenly accelerated and then, PZZZT, pop, sparks and smoke, blew up. Oh, well, worry about that later, for now the dough is looking pliable even though the yeast was 5 months past the use-by date.

While the dozen or so rolls were spread out on a cookie sheet for the second rise, I decide to give them a boost by setting them in front of the fireplace. A few minutes later I notice the dog over by the fireplace, eating something…the rolls! Is cinnamon poison for a dog? I know raisins are but there weren’t any in the recipe. Thank goodness for the emergency animal hospital. They refer me to a poison control hotline for animals. They want to know right away if there were raisins in the cinnamon rolls.

Five minutes and a $65 credit-card charge later I’m feeding the dog a mixture of 3%hydrogen peroxide and Greek yogurt. She laps it up like dessert. It seems that the raw dough is very bad, according to the ominous-voiced vet. Yeast dough can expand – there’s no better host for dough to rise than intestines – and the dog can become drunk from the yeast.

I follow the dog around for a few minutes, expectantly holding a towel so she can throw up into it. Then I get distracted. But suddenly good news! She’s puked on the rug, the one that was just sent out to be cleaned. But there isn’t much dough there. She ate 4 or 5 raw rolls. So I call the poison center again to find out if she should have another dose of peroxide. I tell them she didn’t throw up all the dough but there was some carrot in it, something she ate hours ago. “Unfortunately, dogs don’t throw up chronologically” the kind woman tells me.  

While I’m engaged in that conversation, my husband comes into the room and shouts “Goldy puked on the couch!” That's wonderful. Now we have action so I can end the phone call, and indeed, the dog has expectorated everything, there it is, laid out over the blanket covering the couch. Now we just have to watch her for a few hours to see if her abdomen gets distended or she acts drunk. But she can have her usual dinner! This is so confusing.

The next day all is well. The crisis passed, I take a shower and get dressed and as I’m returning to the bathroom there’s the dog eating something, there’s paper all around her on the rug. It’s only the paper that the new bar of soap was wrapped in. The paper I put the soap remnants in! Quick call to the vet where I am reassured this is not a life-threatening situation. At most, she could have diarrhea.

Now I wonder, what are the chances that she would have diarrhea on the same rug she puked on yesterday? It’ll probably hit her when there’s no one here to let her out, while I’m at the store buying a new stand mixer.