Sh*t On A Stick

Yesterday morning, I woke up, opened my eyes and immediately grabbed my phone to text Ken (he was downstairs, but I’m lazy and the bed was so cozy):

I was filled with relief. And what could possibly have brought about this reverent—nay blissful—attitude towards the state of our dog’s bowels? Well, let’s backtrack a bit.

On Wednesday, I was in the middle of a meeting when Kate skidded into the room and announced loudly, “Atlas just threw up!” I managed to convince her that, having just been accepted into a Veterinary Technician program, cleaning it up would be great practice, so she did, and after my meeting was over, I went to investigate. It was A LOT. Then about half an hour after lunch, he did it again. And after his mid-afternoon snack. For dinner, we gave him a small amount of steamed rice and plain yogurt, and he seemed OK, so on Thursday morning, we gave him the same. Around 10 am, I let him out and he tossed up all the rice and yogurt. My heart sank, and I started immediately fearing the worst—either an obstruction or a tumour.

Let’s backtrack a little bit more. Atlas the monster dog, our canine enfant terrible, is a typical Lab. Which is to say, he will eat literally anything. I’ve pulled plastic tags, bottle caps, deck screws, my car key fob, and other assorted and bizarre items out of his mouth on a regular basis. A couple of weeks ago, he came into the house with a chunk of ice in his mouth (I’m in Canada and it’s winter) so I wasn’t too concerned, until Kate came home, saw him, and yelled, “Why the hell does the dog have glass in his mouth?!” Turns out it wasn’t ice. I have no idea where he could have gotten a large piece of glass from—Ken and I never put our recycling out back. I found him eating okra once outside too—I had to look it up, because I’ve never bought it before in my life. Where he gets this stuff is beyond me, and we’re also currently missing several jigsaw puzzle pieces and three of Kate’s earrings. So the idea of an obstruction was NOT far-fetched.

We took him to the vet on Thursday, where he spent the day, getting examined and tested. When Ken finally brought him home, he was tired but starving. The vet was pretty sure it wasn’t an obstruction, mostly because, as she put it, “He’s very…enthusiastic” which I took to mean that he was leaping into the air and yelling “Yee Hah!!” as he normally does whenever he knows liver treats are close by. She said to give him the stomach medicine she’d prescribed and not to feed him until Friday morning, then give him special canned food—one tablespoon every hour, and see if he held it down. But the most important thing was to make sure he was pooping. Which he didn’t. All day Friday, and all Friday night.

And then finally, it was Saturday morning and EUREKA!

Right now, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, What the heck is going on here? This is supposed to be a HUMOUR BLOG. None of this sh*t  is funny! But wait—there’s more.

Me: So where’s the poo?
Ken: Just over by the fence.
Me: Have you examined it yet?
Ken: Of course not. I was saving it for you.
Me: Awesome, thanks!
Ken: You’re not going out NOW, are you? It’s minus 5 and you’re in your pajamas.
Me: I need a long stick.

And if you’re not laughing at the thought of me, out there in my pajamas and slippers, ankle deep in snow, poking through my dog’s poop with a stick, I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t find anything unusual in it, more’s the pity:

Kate: Did Atlas poop out my earrings yet?
Me: Not yet. Maybe next time.

It’s nice to have something to look forward to, am I right?

54 thoughts on “Sh*t On A Stick”

  1. suze hartline says:

    you may never see those earrings again. unless they were gold. gold seems to poop out, but not silver or whatever the cheap jewelry is made of. those i am pretty sure dissolve.

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      • suze hartline says:

        my lab Charlie used to eat anything and everything that wasn’t tied down. I’d frantically call the vet about once a week for charlie’s first seven years…eventually he either stopped stealing MY stuff to eat or he just ate his real dog food (like THAT was gonna happen but one can dream).

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  2. LOL… Dear Atlas. Glad to read that he’s doing fine. My bestfriend used to have a a blond lab that really had a thing for socks and panties. After a couple of trips to the vet, they had to find a magic hamper that Jack couldn’t break into. 😉

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  3. lhoke2016@yahoo.com says:

    Besides the visual of you in your jammies poking poop, I can see the neighbor’s watching:

    Her: George! Come here. Susan’s running around in her jammies waving a stick.

    Him: What? It’s -5 out. You’re not drunk already are you?

    Her: Now she’s poking something in our yard with stick. You should go out there and see what she’s poking at.

    Him: Now? Can it wait until the spring thaw…it’s too damn cold now.

    Her: George! Go see what she’s poking!

    Him: No! Open the window and yell at her. Or call 911 and let them handle it.

    Her: I can’t open the window and yell at her. She’ll know I was watching….

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  4. Oh poor Atlas, but then again he’s probably saying to himself, “Oh for heavens sake it was just ice and an earring people seriously. Wait until the summer when I can dig things up…….*burp*…. that earring sure didn’t taste as good as I thought.” 🐕‍🦺🐕‍🦺🐕‍🦺

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  5. The last dog my ex and I had was a cross btw pittiexmastiffxlab and ate everything. He chewed up the collar and swallowed the receiver for the wired fence we had. He threw that up. He chewed up and swallowed whole blocks of wood. Our rottie loved to take potatoes out of bag and carry around the yard. As well as socks. My Odie bear loved garbage heads. He found fish head once brought it home and rolled in it. I worked in the seafood dept at the time so in my befuddled sleep state I thought only that he smelled like work and let him in the house. Oooooops.

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  6. Labs are eating machines, aren’t they. The sharks of the canine species. Put on some boots, Suzanne, and keep digging through the poops. There’s always the chance that the earring, car key, or puzzle piece will show up. 🙂

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  9. Scribblans says:

    Have the opposite problem with mine… little bugger goes on hunger strike!

    Mrs S put some cooked beef on with her normal dry food as a ‘treat’ one time. Then the dog refuses to eat her food if it hasn’t got the beef on it. We literally have to go for 2 or 3 days of her not eating anything at all before we overcome it, which we can only do if I can successfully get Mrs S (“Awww… but she looked at me like she was so sad and really hungry…”) not to give in before the dog has to.

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  10. The kids had teamed up to make a solar system mobile using string, hangers and household odds-n’-ends. When it came to Neptune they opted for a marshmallow on an unbent, plastic-coated, pink paperclip. “Here you go,” my daughter said as she tossed it to my son, sitting on the couch. “Oops.” He missed and our one year old yellow lab scarfed it up. “Uh, oh.”
    Three days went by with us on poop-patrol. Nothing emerged. $700 and an endoscopic extraction later, we still have the paperclip, though the dog has since move on to greener, gastro-hazard-free pastures. I still miss her, most days.

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  11. So glad he is on the mend.  No neighbor could be feeding him could they?  Maybe a child?  Good luck.  He is so pretty, I love labs and their personalities.

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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  15. We’ve been through dogs eating unusual things–in fact our youngest has a real appetite for sticks for some reason. The older two will find a stick and chew it to pieces, spitting out splinters, but the youngest literally eats wood. I’ve talked to other dog owners who say changing their canine’s diet put an end to such unusual behavior but I know Labs and I know Atlas will likely never get out of the habit no matter how much you change his diet. Here’s hoping you can at least keep glass and earrings away from him in the future.
    I’m really curious about the okra. I didn’t think it even grew that far north, but perhaps Atlas is a southern dog at heart.

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  18. Oh those darn goofy dogs! Don’t you just love it? My dog was about six months old when we went for a hike up Mount Tamalpais in Marin County California. My poodle was a trouper. This was the first time on the trail. It’s all forested with clear trails. Anyhow, we climb up the mountain and down again. Suddenly my beautiful poodle swoops up a very fresh deer poop in the blink of an eye! Whoa! Hold it! Quick on my feet. I stop her and reach into the maw of her mouth and pull out a steaming perfectly formed poop. At that moment, I felt a confidence that I never had. ‘If I can do this, I can do just about anything.’ My point is that standard poodles and Labs are very mouthy. But soft mouth is the term that’s used for retrievers. My dog’s sire was a hunting champion. She had a very soft mouth. However she chewed up furniture until I started to crate train her. Oh and she chewed the hard back dog training book I was using oh, the telephone cord while I was on the phone… need I say more? But they are so mouthy!

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  19. Oh my god, Atlas sounds like such an amazing dog! You don’t want a quiet, well-behaved dog that only eats normal stuff, that would be far too boring!
    I thought any conversation about poop was weird until I became a parent!

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  20. Now this is funny. And I’m sad to say I just stumbled upon your blog vis-à-vis Brian’s Bonnywood oopsy’s doctors office pee pee mishap. Thank goodness for laughter it’s the very best course of medication especially with metastatic disease. If it cured cancer I’d have been a miracle patient long ago but you have a newly regular reader. I mean regular not in the fecal sense of the meaning of course!
    ❤️

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