The joys of Pet Ownership

Here I was planning on talking about the water shortage, and I encountered something funny (in my view) that I would rather chat about.

Some of you may not find this too funny, you have to have pets to really chuckle over this. If you are easily grossed out, I might suggest you do not read further. For those of you who could use a laugh, understand the joy of pet ownership, or are just curious, please read on. (I will discuss the water shortage in tomorrow's blog, and yes it will post tomorrow since I am writing it today...HA!!)

If you didn't know, we have two small dogs, one is a Yorkie, the other is supposed to be a Yorkie but is not...by a long stretch. Well, traveling in a motor home, you tend to have everything close and easily accessible, including trash and eating utensils. Since we drove over 1,100 miles from Ruidoso, NM to Reno, NV, we didn't stop to cook, but stopped at McDonald's for our meals.

I didn't realize how enticing McDonald's food was to our dogs, but as we were eating, these guys (in the generic sense) were staring at us with their button brown eyes, looking generally pathetic. We did not give them any of our food, that is not good for the dogs, but they were sure staring at us hard, wishing us to drop something, anything, on the ground for them to vacuum up. After we finished eating our meal, we did give the dogs their dog treats, so they were not left out of the eating.

What I didn't know (or think of) at the time was that the dogs had eyes for anything that may have some McDonald's scent/flavor on it. We threw our trash in the waste can, and the dogs were smart enough not to tear open the boxes the hamburgers and fries come in. What I didn't know is that the little Yorkie snagged a hand towel that we wiped our mouths and hands on.

I didn't know he grabbed the towel because he ate the whole thing. I know he ate the whole thing because the whole thing came out his other end yesterday afternoon. The poor little guy (I should NOT be feeling sorry for him, but I did) was struggling to go to the bathroom so with much dread, I bent over to provide assistance. My goodness, I kept pulling and pulling and pulling this white towel material out of his rear. I can only think he was trying to pre-package his poo. It was gross, but I couldn't stop laughing because he just kept waiting for me to help him out of his predicament. Finally the paper broke off and he was a happy puppy.

When I told Steve what happened, he almost bust a gut laughing. If I had timed it correctly, I probably could have gotten him to blow juice out of his nose he was laughing so hard. Our little Yorkie is none the worse for the wear, but you can bet that I am now very careful about the trash. I think we are going to invest in a trash can that has a lid the dogs can't open. We were lucky this time, who knows what else they can get into that wouldn't have such a simple solution.

So, a word to the wise, if you have pets, be very careful about where your trash is stored. Even if there is no evidence that they go sniffing around the trash, there is a very high likelihood that they will get into the trash. If they are very smart dogs, they will hide the evidence that they were trash digging, and then it may be too late. I am grateful that our Yorkie has a very good digestive tract.

Tomorrow you will get to read a little more about my thoughts on our current water shortage and what we are doing to help. Until then...