Dangerous choices
Sometimes Pebbles makes dangerous choices. Monday was one of those days. She was outside with Mum and Mum was doing a spot of gardening while Pebbles had a good run. Mum has a little trolley she uses around the garden to put garden waste in before it goes to the compost bin or into the green bins that are collected. A bunch of flowers from Mum’s birthday had gone over, so she’d taken them outside with her and put them in the trolley.
Whilst Pebbles was having a mad run around, Mum was cutting back some of the herb plants in the patio wall. She went to the trolley with some pieces of lemon balm, only to find the bunch of flowers was missing. When I say ‘missing’ Mum knew exactly where they would have gone, so left what she was doing to look for Pebbles.
What to worry about?
Mum was frantically trying to remember which flowers were in the bunch and thinking if any might be poisonous to us dogs. She couldn’t think of any which were, but still didn’t want to leave them in Pebbles’ paws.
Pebbles was, of course, half way up the orchard with her prize. Mum got a handful of treats and scattered them on the ground in Pebbles’ direction and called ‘find it’. That can be enough for Pebbles to leave what she’s doing and investigate. It worked for a short time and Mum was able to gather up some of the flowers to put in the bin, out of the way.
A trip to the vet
Then Mum looked back at Pebbles and her heart sank. Dangling from Pebbles’ mouth was a length of elastic that had been an elastic band around the flowers. And Pebbles was in the process of eating it. Mum went the whole hog and shouted ‘fish’, offering up the sardine in a pot in exchange for the elastic. Pebbles came running, but decided to finish swallowing the elastic first.
Now, the problem with a long piece of elastic is the risk of it either blocking the intestine or tying itself around the intestine, either of which would result in an operation at the very least. Mum rang the vet and everyone agreed the best idea was to make Pebbles sick. Of course it was out of hours, just to make the escapade more expensive.
Pebbles spent the next two hours at the vet and came home feeling a little sorry for herself, but minus the elastic and the rest of what she’d eaten.
One of Mum’s friends said ‘hopefully she’ll learn’, but this is Pebbles we’re talking about, so I guess the one who needs to learn is Mum. All hazards need to be kept well out of the way!
Love and licks
Wilma
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