For Sale: 1 Puppy

My most recent puppy, Ralphie, just celebrated his first year as part of our family. It might be his last year too.

Now don't get me wrong, Ralphie is fulfilling many of his duties quite well. He is really good at cleaning

and being cute in general. That is the function of both of my puppies: cuteness and stress relief.

There are very few things more stress relieving than cuddling your puppies. They look at you with their cute little eyes and you know they are thinking the same thing you are: when are we going to eat next. 

Both of my dogs have been well drilled on the virtues of cuteness and being stress relievers. But Ralphie is still learning and struggling with these concepts. Just like all dogs, Ralphie loves to chew on things - anything really. My hair, my other dog, the couch, nothing is really too big or too inappropriate for Ralphie to approach with a gleaming eye and biting jaw. 

Ralphie is also attracted to shiny things, which is what got him into trouble here. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was suffering from a cold. And, as all teachers know, half the time it is just easier to go to class with a cold than stay home and deal with all the lesson plans and other hurdle that come with staying home. So when I did get home, I immediately took my puppies outside to pee and then went to bed. 

When I go to bed though, I have to be careful. Buddy, my other dog, and Ralphie, the subject of this particular rant, love shiny things like my diamond ring and earrings. So before I fell asleep, I slipped my jewelry off and put it on my dressing table, far out of reach from any puppy eyes or mouths.

Or so I thought. 

Around 6 p.m., I woke up to the most distressing sounds I have heard in a while. A sound that could only be described as part gagging and part barfing up a lung awaited me as I struggled out of sleep. What was going on? I did a puppy check. Buddy, being the wonderful and lazy soul that he is, was contentedly laying on his side in the middle of my bed. 1 puppy safe. Ralphie was the source of the noise. 

Obviously, he had put something in his mouth that he shouldn't have. I picked him up and tried to open his mouth, but he wasn't having any of that. He jumped out of my arms and stood on the floor trying to work out whatever it was in his mouth. Since he was still breathing, I decided to let him try. I looked around the room to see what on earth could possibly be in his tiny chomper. Diamond ring - check. Necklace - check. Earring....only 1. 

Let me tell you a bit about my jewelry collection. It's pretty non-existent. Especially the more expensive stuff. My mother and sister, thanks to their husbands, have lots of nice jewelry pieces. I, the single one, am still working on my collection. And not very diligently at that. I like books and clothing instead. The particular earring that Ralphie decided to sample were my favorite pair of Pandora earrings - adorable little white flowers that go with anything. Now one was gone. 

At first I thought Ralphie had swallowed it, which really freaked me out since that meant, in order to get the earring back, poop sifting might be in my future. I turned my attention back to my pup to see how things were going. Pretty well, on one hand, because the barfing a lung sound had stopped. But the gagging was still a major problem.

In one of my attempts to get Ralphie to open up, I saw a shiny piece of metal stuck in his upper back teeth. My earring!! So, redoubling my efforts to get that mouth open, I finally dislodged the metal and Ralphie coughed it out. It was not my earring, but the back clasp. I found the actual earring part about 5 feet away on the floor, looking much worse for wear. Here is a before and after picture. 

 So, after many lectures to Ralphie about the danger of swallowing Mama's favorite earrings and to Buddy about watching his younger brother to keep him from doing stupid stuff again, I decided to go get another pair. And have a little fun of my own.

So they weren't really stress relief that day, but I probably will still keep them around. I think... 

AML