Each adventure with my Brittany seemed to lead to the next one. The red plastic that mysteriously exits from the body not having a known place of origin. The desire to find some smelly deceased creature to sniff and chew on and bring to me as their special gift. This next ingestion tops the list. I left the dogs inside because of our late Colorado spring cold weather while I was at work. I returned after work to take them for their daily run. The irony that a deaf Beagle and a blind Brittany’s favorite park was Keller Park, named after Helen Keller the deaf, blind and mute person. This never ceases to amuse me. Dusty normally ran 20 minutes with my voice direction because of his blindness, and this day he barely walked around.
Because I knew my dog so well, I knew something was wrong. We all have off days, so I hoped Dusty just did not feel well that day. By late evening, Dusty was panting, had a hot nose, did not eat his snack before bed, and he ALWAYS eats his snack. He could not sleep. I lay on the floor with him for two hours thinking that this might be the end of his life. I missed him already. The 14 year old beagle was thrilled that she could sleep in Dusty’s bed without me yelling at her.
The next morning, Dusty was alive but obviously in great distress. I took Dusty to work with me. Even though he normally loved to visit the Residents at my Nursing home, he was lethargic, panting, and just stayed close to me in my office. I had to make sales calls to the hospitals, so I put Dusty in the car to ride with me after getting him to eat a couple of bites. When I returned from the sales call, Dusty had given back his bites on the carseat along with some suspicious looking yellow substance. Time to call the vet. I had to wait two hours to get in and by that time, Dusty was noticeably worse.
When the vet came into the exam room, he asked what was wrong.
I pointed to the normally vivacious dog stretched out on the floor not moving and said, “My dog is dying.”
He dropped to the floor beside him, took his temperature, and said, “Do you think he may have eaten a foreign substance?”
I replied, “Yes, I do. I found a four inch square of torn pantyhose in the bathroom, and could not find the full pair of pantyhose that I threw away two days ago.”
“Let’s get the X-rays immediately.”