(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I got a frantic call from my husband today while I was pulling into the chiropractor’s parking lot about 35 minutes from our house. (I need adjustments 3x/week for the next 4 weeks thanks to my recent car accident.)

“The alarm is going off at the house!”

“Well, I’m at the doctor and I won’t be home for over half an hour if leave now, so…”

“Okay, I’ll tell them to send the police.”

Dave,* who’s been living with us for a few months while waiting for his wife to get a transfer from her job 3 hours from HIS new job, beat me home and called Jesse with the news: “The dogs ate that big box of chocolate. I think it set off the alarm when they were scraping the plastic across the floor.”

Oh, great. My dogs, who just a few days earlier, downed 10 lbs of flour, just ate 2.5 lbs of chocolate. Does it get any better?

Fortunately for all of us, it wasn’t very good-quality chocolate, so the amount of cocoa consumed even if one dog had eaten the whole thing alone would have been minimal. So far, everyone seems just fine. Even Pickles, who we learned from the projectile vomiting post-flour, tends to have a more sensitive stomach than the other dogs. Awesome. What else can they POSSIBLY get into?

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

• Not his real name.

(image: SXC.hu)

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — We came home from visiting family last night to find a white explosion all over the kitchen and living room. We should have known better than to leave the flour on the counter in preparation for tonight’s fried chicken dinner. But honestly, what is appealing about 10 lbs of flour? The world may never know. And my rug will never be the same.

My bedspread will never be the same, either, because about an hour after we got home, Pickles projectile-vomited a disgusting green half-liquid, half-paste mixture all over it. Oh, and have you ever used a regular vacuum to suck up 10 lbs of flour? I don’t recommend it. And neither does the manufacturer, I’m sure.

These dogs are VERY lucky we love them so much. Otherwise, we would be selling them to the circus, I swear. Oh, and did I mention how fun it is to clean flour from every surface in your home two days after getting in a car accident and having limited to no mobility due to back injury? It’s a blast.

Previous episodes:

• My Glasses Case
• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — If there’s one thing Ty loves, it’s stuffed animals. And he’s going to get them, no matter what it takes! See what I mean?

We call him Mr. Barky Buns Big Head. I’m sure you can figure out why.

Contents Copyright © 2008 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Oh boy, oh boy, the dogs learned a new trick! It’s called “jump up on the counter and eat stuff they have no business eating and then shred the evidence all over the house so no one can prove nuttin’.” It’s totally precious. Except for NOT.

About two weeks ago, I came home from the post office and everything seemed normal. Until I went to make lunch and couldn’t find the baguette I had thought was on the kitchen counter. I called my husband at work.

“Did you take the baguette to work with you?”

“Uh, no, why?” he asked, like that wasn’t a perfectly reasonable question.

“I can’t fi– oh my God, is that part of a PANERA BAG????”

“What are you talking about?”

“Murphy just rolled over and there is part of a Panera bag under him on the dog bed.” I later found small pieces of it in about six other locations. But not nearly enough to make a whole bag. Hmm.

“Maybe you should talk to him about the baguette.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

In the week or so that followed, the dogs consumed:

• Half a pan of brownies
• A box of Krispy Kreme donuts
• A bag of single-serve coffee filters
• A raw, unwashed sweet potato
• Part of a grilled cheese sandwich
• Several paper plates and napkins
• Eight (8!!!!!) empty cardboard boxes
• A sheaf of brochures from my husband’s old company

And those are just the items we found evidence of. I shudder to think what may have gone missing without our noticing yet.

At first we thought it was Ty (he HAS been mighty pushy when I open the fridge lately), but based on last night and this morning, we’re pretty sure it’s Murphy. You see, Murphy has food allergies. Wheat, corn, beef, things normal dogs can eat. We switched him to food that doesn’t contain those things and limited his treat intake, and his dandruff and horrible stomach rash went away.

So when his rash came back in one small spot on his inner thigh (is that what you call it on a dog?) a few days ago and then spread with a vengeance I’ve never seen to the rest of his stomach last night, I took him to the vet right away. Turns out he has a staph infection (!!!) because he licked the living daylights out of it over the last few days, unbeknownst to me. The diagnosis? “Must be the stolen food,” the vet said solemnly. She did not add, “You neglectful dog-mother, you,” though I suspect from her expression that she was thinking it.

Now, not only do we have to change his TREATS to make extra sure he’s not consuming any allergens whatsoever and stop giving him people food entirely (what, you do it too, shut up), we can’t leave anything edible (or inedible, for that matter) on our counters or tables, lest he scarf them down.

It’s kind of like childproofing, except your toddler has the reach of a six-foot-tall adult and will not only mouth but actually consume whatever he can acquire.

Why did he have to finally realize just how tall he is???

Previous episodes of “Things Murphy Destroyed or Ate”:

• My Glasses Case
• Prescription Drugs
• A Framed Photo of the Dogs
• Electronics
• A Wallet

Contents Copyright © 2008 Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Well, Ty didn’t make it to his 4:45 vet appointment today. Around 1, he started crying while just lying on the floor in my office. When 20 minutes of petting did nothing to calm him, I knew something was wrong. While I was calling the vet, he started drooling. This dog was in serious pain.

I was nearly in tears when I got on the phone with the vet tech, and I think she could tell. Even though the doctor wasn’t due in for another hour and a half, they told me to come straight in, and the doctor met me at the doorway as the vet tech helped me get Ty out of the car and into the building — and straight back to an exam room.

After feeling him all over, she agreed that it was his ankle, or hock (hence my ham and loogi references), that was the problem, not his other knee — thank goodness.

“Can I keep him for a few hours? Do some x-rays? Sedate him a little and give him something for the pain?” she asked.

Who would say no to THAT? So I left Ty for a few hours and sat around nervously waiting for the office to call and tell me I could come back and look at the films and see what was what.

Official diagnosis: Sprain. Treatment: NSAIDs, rest, and constant icing.

I’m so sad my baby is in more pain, and virtually crippled for the next month, but more than a little part of me is relieved that it’s not my fault. The vet said he twisted it trying to protect the other leg just while walking or turning or something. I’m not a bad mom. Right?

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(image: Jyn Meyer)

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I came home from my Bible study last night and Ty was holding up his nonsurgery leg. It looks like he may have done something to his paw or his ankle, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part because I can’t bear the thought that his original bad knee is messed up again. I am just beating myself for not making him stay in the crate no matter what for the whole six weeks…

We have a vet appointment today at 4:45, and I’m trying to keep him comfortable in the meantime. Last night when I took him out to go to the bathroom, he fell down the patio stairs on the way back in because he couldn’t hold himself up. I was home alone, so I had to carry him myself. We both barely made it up, but we got inside.

This morning, he wouldn’t come out of his crate until I got in there with him and picked up his back end, and then as soon as he got out he laid down again. We repeated the process several times until I got him outside to go potty, and then I lifted his back end so he could wheelbarrow-walk up the steps with his front paws. Hopefully he won’t need to go again until we leave for the vet. I don’t know if either of us can take it.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Tomorrow marks three weeks since Ty’s cruciate ligament surgery. He got his stitches out six days ago, and the doctor proclaimed him “the healingest dog I ever saw,” saying he was doing better at 2 weeks than most dogs were at 6 weeks.

Of course I’m one proud mommy!

He is almost back to normal, which is great except that he has three more weeks of not being able to do anything but laze around the house and go outside only on leash and only to potty and come back in. He’s bored out of his giant, giant skull, but his attitude is positive (if mischievous).

Oh, and did I mention that we’ve completely given up on trying to keep him off the furniture?

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I didn’t realize exactly how co-dependent our dogs are until Pickles couldn’t be in the same room as Ty for what seemed to her an interminable period of time. This is from the second day he was home, and it’s only gotten more pathetic:

She just sits outside the office door and cries all day when he’s in with me. I think she’s actually making herself sick with sorrow over not being able to lick Ty for cumulative hours daily. They have started napping nose to nose under the gate, but every time I try to take a picture, they move.

I tried holding her in my lap so she could see him, but she went so crazy that I had to put her back out of the room for fear that she would snag his stitches with her insane clawing to get free.

It’s kind of completely heartbreaking.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — I think that when Pickles dreams, she’s a black pug, Murphy is a Great Dane, and Ty is a giant whose leg doesn’t hurt.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King

(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Ty wasn’t even home for 12 hours before we had to rush him to the emergency vet.

This dog is terrified of baby gates, so the first night he was home, we put him in my office with his e-collar on and put up a baby gate and figured he’d be just fine while we went to dinner. We locked the other dogs in the mudroom with the dog door and headed out.

When we got home, Ty met us at the door. Yeah, he jumped over the baby gate out of the office. For the first time in his life. The same day he came home from the animal hospital from major surgery. And apparently he didn’t quite clear it, because it was dangling from the door frame.

He was just as happy as could be, but we were totally freaked. We rushed him to the all-night emergency vet, convinced he had ripped open his internal sutures, where they said he was just fine and sent us home. (That would be after Jesse and I waited in the exam room for an hour snipping at each other because we were so freaked about Ty.)

No more alone in the office when we left the house!

Then, two days later, Jesse took the e-collar off to get Ty his dinner, and about two nanoseconds later, Ty licked open his stiches and was gushing blood all over the floor. Twenty minutes of hard pressure did nothing to stop the bleeding, so we wrapped him with an Ace bandage and carried him out to the car. I basically laid on top of him for the 30-minute drive to the all-night vet’s office to keep him from jumping around in the back seat.

And then we got there and he had stopped bleeding. Awesome. The vet, a different one, cleaned him up and said he didn’t even need new stitches and sent us home.

Since then, he’s made a few other attempts to thwart the baby gate, but no more bleeding, thank goodness.

This dog will be the death of me yet.

Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King