This morning after I took my shower I noticed Lupita rooting around the bathroom floor looking like a little piglet (the curly tail doesn't help) in her quest for something to eat. Then I realized she was eating something. I thought maybe it was a small piece of caulking but it was very round. It looked like a little round white piece of paper, the kind a hole punch makes but smaller. I leaned over and saw the remains of half a pillow. ‘Oh my God!’ I thought,‘what has she eaten?’ I snatched the remaining half up. It could only have come from Esperando’s bathroom drawer, and must have fallen when he was taking his pills this morning before he took Sweet Pickle off for a walk. Was it medicine for blood pressure or cholesterol or something else, and what kind of harm would it do to a little 5-pound dog’s body and soul? I frantically pawed through his pill bottles until I found the matching culprit to be low dosage aspirin.
Hmm, I remembered my vet telling me some time ago that I could give Sweet Pickle aspirin for his arthritis, but only Ascriptin. And he weighs 60 pounds to Lupita's 5. I couldn’t remember what he said about why regular aspirin was bad for dogs. I thought about everything I knew about poison control—I was supposed to overdose her with water to flush out her system. It seemed so drastic and unpleasant for both of us until I knew if her eating this pill would kill her. On the other hand, she was a tiny little thing and how long would it take for the whole thing to dissolve and be ingested? So instead I gave her a really big portion of a favorite food hoping that a very full tummy would diminish some of these issues. Then I ran to the computer to look up ‘Chihuahua eating aspirin’. Yet one more time: how did we ever survive without the internet? Just about then Esperando returned from his walk.
He: “What are you doing?”Me: “Looking to see if Lupita is going to die from the pill of yours she found on the floor and ate.”
He: “Oh, I looked everywhere for it and couldn’t find it. Where was it?”
Me: “I don’t know but she found it and was eating it.”
He: “When I couldn’t find it I finally decided it had fallen down the sink.”
Connecting to Yahoo seemed painfully slow, twice the screen froze up and I had to reboot. Finally I connected. There were several entries about giving a hurt Chihuahua puppy half of a low dosage aspirin tablet—exactly what Lupita had just eaten. Just be sure to give it to the puppy on a full stomach it said, so she won’t ulcerate her stomach. Unwittingly I had done just the right thing. It was a very scary moment with a very happy outcome.While all this was going on Lupita disappeared into our closet. Esperando got out of the shower, squeaky clean, and went into the closet to get dressed. He was leaving on a flight to Mexico City in an hour.
He, screaming: “On NOOOO! Arrrggggghh!”
Me, thinking he’s forgotten something important he needed to do before he leaving town: “What?”
He: “I just stepped in dog poop”.
Me: “Oh dear, I’m so sorry.”
This has happened before because our little darling is not properly housebroken yet. I've never seen a dog be so nonchalant about toilet matters. I haven't had the pleasure yet, but I am beginning to think Esperando needs to be looking down more when he's walking around in our house and not so caught up in the clouds with work issues. There's a message here somewhere. Who can say if just this one time she wasn’t getting even for a subconscious threat against her life had she had consumed a different sort of pill? I don’t really believe that, but it did have a sort of ring of justice to it; a little aromatic reminder of a small dog to wear on your person while you are on the road, just so you can remember your fabulous home life and your precious little beastie.
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