When My Pup Ate Grass of a Different Persuasion
A blade of grass by any other name apparently tastes as sweet ...and other delicasies of puppy dining.
When my husband laid eyes on “Philly” our fairly new puppy, (he’s 10 ½ months old now), on a little square picture among hundreds of other rescues, he knew immediately that “the thundering hoard” was ours. And he was right. Philly fits us. And I think we fit him, too.
Luckily for us, Philly, for the most part, aside from chewing through three puppy seat-belts, (two of them within twenty-minutes), is a pretty good traveler. Barring the lesson he taught us that he does not like to be belted in for much longer than a few hours and would demand the freedom to perch himself unsafely between the two front seats of the Jeep Cherokee, otherwise he’ll sleep and hang out in the back – as long as he’s not belted. We found all this out on our road trip from Pennsylvania to Chicago. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle that little issue for the return trip in a few weeks.
Yardley, PA is a beautiful quiet and small town just west of the Delaware River. Actually, it’s on the Delaware river. Philly loves to pretend he’s a bird hunter while sniffing acorns and come soon, he will discover the springtime bunnies.
Philly, his young puppy life having originated in Alabama before his journey to us, was not prepared for the many Chicago smells, sights, and sounds… what I mean to say is that we were not prepared for all the smells (cigarettes, chewing gum, bottle lids, caps, wrappers etc.), sights (train tracks, bright lights), and sounds (horns, trains, wind) and finally the season called “snow” so readily available day to day. Both Peter and I have lived many years in NYC but we’d gotten a little soft.
We weren’t ready to pull him by the collar every other second. To date I think I have pulled from the back of Philly’s mouth no less than twenty chewed pieces of gum (no hyperbole here), dumped out, like a salt shaker, various shapes and sizes of poo – YES DISGUSTING – (that’s why I take his head and tip his mouth over and jolt him till the poop pops out and on the ground like exerting the final glump of the ketchup), a couple handfuls of cigarette butts… I MEAN WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING? HAS NO ONE HEARD OF A TRASH CAN?
Do you know how strong a puppy’s jaw is when fighting for the right to swallow a disgusting foreign object? Stronger than your disgust of it, I assure you.
Let’s all take a moment and breathe, remembering that spring is upon us.
After reasonably coming to terms with reaching into the back of his throat for unwelcoming half-chewn objects and after a few weeks of Philly not coming to terms with it… we both reached a reasonable understanding. From his point of view I think it probably was something like if I don’t want fingers in the back of my throat then maybe I’ll stop with the chewing gum. We’re still in the ring over the poop.
The reason my husband and I are in Chicago is that we have a theatre company and are producing a play out here. So, not knowing Chicago well and doing my utmost at some city research, I found an “okay” Airbnb in an “okay” area for an eight week stay. Unfortunately, the grass, as I have not yet even thoroughly described, is less than okay for Philly.
Speaking of grass…
One day a few weeks ago, about an hour and a half before we were due at rehearsal, as I was gathering and organizing for the evening, I gazed over at Philly… who gazed back… sort of…
I peered at him more closely.
Philly seemed to be… swaying… a bit, attempting to gaze back at me, except that he couldn’t quite keep his balance. I asked Peter if he thought Philly looked… you know… weird….
I, now with growing concern, kept my eye on him as I readied for rehearsal. Philly walked in a manner that could be best described as “in his cups” to the other side of the room. As the moments passed he started to sort of … tremor… vibrate?
His legs began to buckle. His eyes grew glassy. Until finally, within minutes, he appeared as if he was having a full-on stroke.
Is my puppy having a stroke?!
The first week we’d arrived, I’d made mental awareness of the vets in the neighborhood. We swooped Philly up and headed swiftly to the first one I could think of just around the corner. We rushed in. Luckily it was empty, no lines.
“My-puppy-is-acting-weird-we’re-from-out-of-town-I-don’t-have-a-vet-here-can-you-help-him?”
“Are you a patient?”
Peter loses the leash and Philly sort of stumbles around for a second.
“Please keep his leash, I don’t know if he’s contagious.”
What? To whom? There’s no one here! Come here, Lady. Let me breathe on you.
A moment here.
Why are people so annoying at times like this? Why is the first choice the rude choice and not the compassionate one when clearly all the memes on Instagram clearly state that’s what we’re supposed to do? I am certain on that day just minutes before we entered, she’d just published a flowy reel full on with wild roses and a babbling brook about how we should all be slow to judge. Because she has so much time seeing no animals who are currently not in her waiting room. You know, all those absent animals my dog is about to infect.
Whatevs.
She quickly told us she couldn’t (wouldn’t?) help up and directed us to MedVet just a mile down the road.
Ewww, dogs! Let’s all take a quick check that we’re working in the correct industry for our gifts and talents, shall we?
So Peter, Puppy and I got back in the Jeep and I white-knuckled it down the road, going in the wrong direction at first, praying please-don’t-let-my-dog-die in broken record fashion while Peter cuddled Philly in the back seat. Within about a minute I did feel a wave of grace come over me; a calm without reason. So for what it’s worth, the please-don’t-let-my-dog-die prayer works pretty well.
We carried Philly into another completely empty veterinary hospital, eerily so, (a miracle in a city like Chicago), and explained how our dog seemed as if he was drunk or having a stroke.
Within a few moments we were told it was likely he’d picked up marijuana on the sidewalk somewhere.
Pot. Mary Jane. Weed.
To be continued….
Oh no!! Puppy....That sort of stuff is so scary. You are both excellent dog parents.
Oh no! Poor Philly! I can only imagine how upsetting it was to see him acting like that and not knowing what was causing it. I’m relieved to hear it wasn’t a serious condition. I hope there aren’t any long-term effects. 🙏 The Instagram memes part was soooo funny - and so true!