A cruel coincidence

It was stupid of me I will admit, to leave the spool of thread on the bannister outside my office. I'd used it over the weekend to sew a patch on a costume, and I put it on the bannister because I was too lazy to take it directly from my desk back to the sewing box downstairs where it is stored. For years, I've used the bannister as a staging post. I simply forgot that we're now living for the first time with a puppy who has no scruples about stealing things off desks and counters... and bannisters.

I actually left two spools -- a small one with dark blue thread and a big one with white thread into which I'd also stuck the big needle that I used. When I left for the gym yesterday morning, I noticed both spools on the bannister but didn't take the time to put them away. Only much later in the day did it strike me that the big one was gone.

I suspected Dionne immediately, and Steve and I searched for it. We found no trace of either spool or needle, and we told each other it was almost unimaginable Dionne could have EATEN them in the small amount of time she was unsupervised. There'd be traces of such carnage. Right?

Still I worried about her as I feel asleep last night. She seemed fine in the morning and gobbled down her breakfast. But a few hours later, she crept into the corner next to the sofa in my office and vomited up the whole meal.

For all the barfing that girl did in her first year of life, she hadn't done it in a few months. Once again I tackled the disgusting task of poking a skewer in her upchucked breakfast to see if I could detect any spools shards or blood from the needle ripping up her guts. (Years ago, Steve and I heard about one CCI puppy who ate an entire pin cushion -- filled with pins. That required Surgical Intervention, something we've never had to endure and which we fervently hope to avoid. But the thought still chills our blood.)

Kenneled and fasting, she looks sad. 

Dionne threw up again a few hours later, and I tried to stay calm, reminding myself that even a cautionary trip to the vet would be a multi-hundred-dollar outing. We called our housekeeper. She was  here yesterday and remembered seeing the small spool but not the big one. She certainly hadn't found it on the floor and tucked it away somewhere, as we had hoped.

It was only sometime in the mid-afternoon that Steve thought to look under a piece of furniture we hadn't looked under before. Both the spool and needle were hidden there -- intact, though a bit the worse for having been gnawed.

So the cruel coincidence is the fact that Dionne just happened to throw up on the very day after she stole, chewed on, and hid the spool and needle. Obviously, the one had nothing to do with the other.

As to what IS irritating her tummy, we have no clue. At the moment, we're feeling almost no sympathy for her at all.

Tucker wouldn't dream of stealing anything from my bannister.  He wouldn't even look at the recovered spool and needle even when we tried to lure him into doing so. 

The recovered spool, complete with chew marks and intact needle.  (Both are now safely back in the sewing box.)