The Great Sugar Caper

Life with two dogs is fun.  And by "fun" I mean "twice as much crap to clean up."

Wednesday night the boys had their last summer lacrosse game.  My husband (he really needs a cute nickname) had come straight from work, so we had two cars at the game.  When it was over, I sent him home and offered to wait for the boys in all their stinky glory after a long heartfelt speech by the coaches. 

As soon as we walked in the door, I knew something was wrong. There were little bits of plastic all over the floor, which was sticky, and the dogs had a guilty look.  Big B was trying to figure out exactly what they had gotten into when I realized the only possibility:  the sugar.

I had bought a 2lb bag of brown sugar at the store.  I have a plastic container with this little brown sugar keeper that prevents the sugar from clumping together like a rock.  I had put all the other groceries away, but wanted to clean out the container and re-soak the sugar keeper before adding the new sugar.  So there it sat on the counter, oblivious to its impending doom, because the dogs have never before taken food off the counter.  Especially something still wrapped in plastic from the store! 

But they had.  They had eaten the whole two pounds plus most of the package.  The floor was sticky after mopping, so I mopped again.  And again.  I googled to find out if this was just stomach ache stupidity or poison control territory.  I called the emergency vet.  Opinions varied.

On thing was for sure.  It wasn't going to be pretty.  George's stomach looked like he was about to give birth.  Daisy looked pitifully at me, begging me to make it stop.  We offered them water and spent time in the back yard, hoping to avoid the inevitable explosion in the house.  Nothing.

Finally we decided to stay up with them awhile and watch TV.  We're watching Lost on Netflix which, in my opinion, is the only tolerable way to watch this show.  I couldn't stand the weekly cliffhangers and season finales, so I gave up on it while it was on the air.  But now!  Now we can just click "Play next episode" until we're falling asleep on the couch.  Awesome.

Disclaimer:  I did not take photos of my sick dogs.  This was a cute picture from before.  Not because I think it's morally wrong, but because I didn't want to risk getting dog puke on my iPhone.

Anyway, The Pit Boss had just cued up the next episode, the one where they finally are headed back to LAX after the bomb went off, when the vomiting started.  Poor Daisy.  Even though she's bigger, she is much further removed from eating crappy food.  Every time we'd get it all cleaned up, come in from another extended stay outside, and push "play" she'd vomit again.  Almost like she knew that Jack and Kate couldn't really go back to their lives so easily. 

Just about the time we were sure Daisy was done, we decided we had to get some sleep.  We put George in the crate and trundled off to bed.  I think it was an hour before I heard him.  I'll spare you the gory details except to say that a) I got about two hours of sleep total that night and b) they appear to be fine now and have passed the 3-5 day window when the emergency vet said pancreatitis might set in.  The new bag of brown sugar is safely in its container on a high shelf in the pantry. 

My mother-in-law wonders if they are smart enough to realize that eating the sugar is what made them so sick and, if so, would that stop them from eating off the counter.  Mr. Incredible and I know that that's about as likely as Jack and Kate learning that they can't change the past before Season 6.

Not freaking likely. 



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