The wages of garbagenarianism

We knew it had to happen sooner or later.  We've never had a puppy that didn't barf up garbage. Yesterday Dionne joined the club.

This occurred in Steve's office around mid-afternoon. As he described it to me, Dionne was out of her kennel, sitting on the concrete stairs leading down from the landing and looking "rather green," in Steve's words. That's an odd way to put it; Dionne can no more look green than I can look lavendar; she's coal black. But what he meant was that something about her posture suggested queasiness. Indeed a moment later, she trotted over to Mr. Tucker's bed and vomited up this ripe deposit.

Tucker looked appalled. Steve and I were disgusted, though once again it's as much our fault as hers.  Or maybe mostly Steve's fault this time. Earlier in the day, he'd been down in the lower yard, repairing the back fence. Dionne was with him, off leash, and he wasn't paying the closest attention to her. At a certain point, he noticed she was chewing on an avocado seed. It must have come from our avocado tree; who got the seed out of the avocado isn't clear (but probably one of the possums that regularly invade.) Where Steve blew it was in not springing up to extract the avocado seed remnants from Dionne's maw. He says he figured the seed was "organic."

Experience with puppies put some starch in our response. To allow her irritated gut to recovery, we fed her no dinner and prepared plain rice for her breakfast. (We have bad memories of being awakened at 1 in the morning by a retching pup.) In what I think was rather overkill, Steve also hectored her for the rest of the evening, as she looked at us from her kennel, wondering why she was confined with no dinner. "Barfers don't get to be free," Steve told her, contemptuously. "A barfer's life is not a happy one."

This morning's breakfast.  

Note the telltale rice grain.

Lest anyone worry, she's fine now. Wolfed down her puppy chow at lunchtime and dinner today, and hasn't so much as burped. But there's so much to learn. ("I must not eat dirt. Must not eat poop.  Must not eat avocado seeds.  Must not eat palm tree seeds. Etc. Etc. Etc.")