That Darned Dog!

I got another amusing story in my mailbox from my cousin Shelley in Iowa. I'll include it below, but it made me think of a couple of dogs I used to share living space with in my younger days. Before I share my recollections of Ivy and Calpurnia, here's the story Shelley sent me.

Jasper and the Unbaked Yeast Rolls

We have a fox terrier by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the summer of 2001 from the fox terrier rescue program. For those of you, who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10 year old child about whom you know nothing and committing to doing your best to be a good parent.

Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of 'no discipline,' I should tell you that Perry and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress.

Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving for family, extended family, and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend. I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole darn house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wed evening to reheat Thurs am. Since the kitchen was freshly painted, you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for a few hours. Perry and I decided to go out to eat, returning in about an hour. The rolls were ready to go in the oven. It was 8:30 PM.

When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated.

I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every 2 hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice it to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.

We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing; put the dog out to relieve
himself. Well, the dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the grass or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn't lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard he couldn't stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon.

I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol. Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Perry and I loaded him up and took him with us to my sister's house for the first Thanksgiving meal of the day.

My sister lives outside of Muskogee on a ranch, (10 to 15 minute drive). Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Perry and I, we took off. Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst of it. Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. God strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire trip to Karen's, thankful she didn't live any further away than she did.

Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister's garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunken dog, each returning with a tale of Jasper's latest endeavor to walk without running into something. Of course, as the old adage goes, 'what goes in must come out' and Jasper was no exception.

Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog's digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a
mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karen's house.

Having discovered his 'packages' on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor. This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their
services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn't degrading enough, the darn dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely so we took him home and dropped him off before we left for our second Thanksgiving dinner at Perry's sister's house. I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume. I am also happy to report that just this evening I found 2 risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding 2 of them for later would not be a bad idea. Now, I'm doing research on the computer as to: 'How to clean unbaked dough from the carpet.'

I had a dog when I was growing up, and Pebbles was a bright and cheerful companion. Other dogs I've encountered, though, rarely live up to the standards set by my dog, Lassie, or Old Yeller. Take Ivy or Calpurnia, for example.

When I lived with Virginia on Oregon Hill in the mid-80's, one of her friends brought her new puppy over and convinced Virginia to assume ownership. The pup was a little Black Lab, and I suggested the name Calpurnia (not Caesar's wife, but the no-nonsense maid in To Kill a Mockingbird). The sweet, little puppy soon grew into her huge paws, and indiscriminately ate everything she could.

When Christmas came, we decided to decorate a live tree, and I hauled out my collection of hand-blown glass ornaments from Germany. They were quite special, and they had cost a lot. Each one was unique, and they looked great on our tree. One morning I met up with Virginia in the kitchen. As a police officer, she worked some strange shifts, so we hadn't seen each other in a few days.

"So what do you think of our tree?" Virginia asked.
"I love it. I'm glad we put one up," I answered.

"Have you looked at it closely lately? No? Come here. Notice anything?" I honestly didn't see anything unusual. It was still standing; that was a plus in a house with two cats, and a dog who could clear the top of the coffee table with her tail. "Look carefully at the bottom branches. Do they seem to be missing anything?"

Why, yes, they did. Most of my glass ornaments and the tree lights, in fact. Calpurnia had been spending her days munching away at anything she could reach on the tree. She loved the taste and crunch of those ornaments and glass lightbulbs. And she never seemed any worse for the wear, either. The glass was no match for Cal's digestive system.

Just a few years earlier, I shared a house (hovel, actually) with three other guys on Ellwood Avenue. It was my first home away from home, other than the college dorm. My roommate Danny had a Springer Spaniel named Ivy who was as dumb as a box of rocks. Sweet, but stupid, bless his heart.

Another roommate, Clay, found some string trailing out of his bedroom one morning. He couldn't imagine why it was there, so he picked it up, winding it around his hand as he followed the trail. The string seemed dirty and used, and Clay wondered who'd left it strung all over the upstairs of the house.

He tried tugging on it to wind it in, but it was caught on something around a corner, so he kept walking and winding, only to discover when he turned the corner that the string disappeared into Ivy's butt.

Dogs will just eat any old thing. Cats are much more sensible when it comes to their diet.