Kill Me (or How the Dogs Ate Nicorette)

12/23/2004
I, like a moron, offered to watch a friends 2 greyhounds over the holidays. I've met her dogs several times at lure coursing events and they seemed so laid back. She brought them over this morning. It got off to a chaotic start as one of them had gotten his tail caught in the car door. Until I could get everyone settled, clip the hair on his tail and take a look blood had already been smeared and flung on the walls, sofa, floor, etc. Plus the first thing he did as he walked in the house was lift his leg on my sofa. I thought, "It's okay, new environment, new smells, he'll settle in."

The rest of the afternoon I kept a close eye on them and my 2 dogs to make sure everyone was getting along. There were no problems, except a couple times having to yell at the male for hiking his leg. Then we decide to run out and grab some dinner. We gated off the upstairs and were gone for maybe 40 minutes. We came home to complete and utter destruction. Her male dog had knocked dishes off the counter and pulled them out of the sink. He knocked everything off the kitchen table, including a baggie of Nicorette gum (my husband decided to try and quit dipping this week). The bag had about 25 pieces of gum, there were none left. I start to panic because I don't have any peroxide and my husband is telling me that much nicotine will easily kill a dog.

Although we know which dog pulled everthing down we have no idea which of the 4 dogs partook in the nicotine gum. So that means everybody got to vomit. I send my husband to the store to get peroxide, I need some anyway to try and get the blood off the walls. In the meantime I hop on the net and try to find other vomit induction techniques and see that salt on the back of the tongue will also work. So everyone gets salt, my greyhound wins with the first hork, which includes her entire dinner but no nicorette (PHEW!). Of course before I can grab paper towels to pick and and sift through the vomit the other 2 dogs frantically start trying to eat it. I yell at my dogs to LEAVE IT and they walk away. Apparently the 2 visiting dogs heard me say EAT IT because i have to physically remove them from the vomit, at which point the male growls and bares his teeth at me.

I put the 2 visiting dogs on leashes and tether them so they can't eat anyone elses puke. As soon as they throw up I have to run in to keep them from eating their own. So I get all four dogs to upchuck and sift through their dinner, guess what? The males vomit is filled with tiny chunks of nicorette. Crisis averted, for now.

Then I go down in the basement and find bomb #2, the dog has knocked the lid off the trash can (my dogs have never figured out how to open this one) and dragged trash all over our basement, including running in circles with a half-full Starbucks mocha leaving coffee stains all over the off-white carpet. He also managed to pull down the unopened can of cat food I set on the counter, bite it open and eat the cat food as well as completely mangle the can.

I set up a crate and put the male in it, now he's barking his fool head off and howling. They aren't going to be back until 1/2. I'm hoping to catch them tomorrow morning before they fly out, but not sure there's much they'll be able to do. Any place that boards will be full to capacity for the holidays. I wish I had been given some inkling of their behavior -- I just can't believe they don't do any of this shit at home.

Happy Fucking Holidays to Me!

12/25/04
I've only seen them at events, never in a home situation. I called Thursday to see if they were normally crated (they aren't) but she said she forgot to mention that they never have free roam of the house when they are gone, they are locked in a bedroom. The female is actually very well behaved and listens to the word "NO" or "AAAAAA". The male cannot be trusted even if I follow him around and watch him. Yesterday he knocked the trash can over as I was yelling "NOOOOOO!" and jumped up with both feet on the counter several times. He also picked up another can of Wellness (and god damn that shit isn't cheap) and within the 2 seconds it took me to sprint over and grab it had crushed the can leaving 4 holes in it from his canines.

So basically he's crated 24/7, except potty breaks. Unfortunately he hasn't been in a crate in years and he doesn't like it. I haven't slept more than a few hours since Wednesday night. He barks, whines and howls off and on all fucking night. He gets the female so upset that she chimes in. My dogs are miserable, they don't understand what the hell is going on and are both depressed. I'm going to call the vets office they were originally going to be boarded at on Monday and hope that they have a run free, which I doubt because of the holiday.

The funny thing is that I'm extremely tolerant. I have a greyhound and a whippet so I understand that you can't leave food on the counter, that sometimes there will be accidents in the house and sometimes odd things get chewed up. But this is totally out of control, the male does not listen, period. My poor husband is off work until 1/5 and he is planning on going to work next week just to get out of the house. I may just call every boarding facility in a 60 mile radius...

12/27/04
IT GETS EVEN BETTER!!! To top it all off tonight after everyone had dinner and went outside the male greyhound was kind of following my whippet Nemo around with a funny look on his face. I told him to cut it out and he left him alone. I had no idea he was going to become aggressive. A few minutes later there was a terrible scream from directly behind my chair, the greyhound grabbed Nemo by the neck and tore a huge gash in his throat. Completely and totally unprovoked.

I had to rush him to the ER and they stitched him up with a local, I held him and he was SO good, didn't even flinch when they trimmed off the flap of skin and stitched his neck. He also had a tear in the underlying muscle but the vet said it wasn't worth putting him under to fix the tiny tear, it should heal on its own. The gash is 1/2 inch from his jugular and carotid artery. He got a heavy dose of narcotics before we left and is so stoned now he can't even keep his mouth closed.

The dogs will be gone tomorrow, even if I have to call every boarding place within a 2 hour drive. I will not have that dog here while Nemo is still out of it and in pain. I'm so pissed at the dog and at myself for agreeing to watch the dog that I want to throw up.

12/28/04
Thankfully their vet was able to board them. Nemo is doing a little better today, but can't go up and down stairs and is leaking blood/serum everywhere. This is him last night when he was riding the narcotic high:

He was attacked a few years ago by an off-leash german shepherd and had a drain in his side. Poor little man.

12/29/04
Nemo's actually doing much better today and has been able to go up and down the stairs without being carried. The owner of the greyhounds is going to pay the vet bills. The worst thing now is that the wound is constantly leaking serum so the surrounding skin is red and raw from being wet all the time. I've been cleaning it several times a day and did a hot compress this evening, hopefully the leaking will stop in a few days.