So..I just need to go outside for a minute..my chocolate will be fine where it is..
i just got inside and turned on some YouTube farming videos. I set out a a few pounds of my favorite of chocolate and some grapes to snack on and realized I forgot to feed the goats...goats before YouTube..I think that was in my marriage vows somewhere! So 10 minutes later I’m back and headed back for my recliner and there stands my Plott Hound, Lady Airwai Lineaker deYardborough licking her lips standing in the wreckage of the uneaten remains of my 2lbs of imported $34 worth of exceptional Swiss hand made chocolates. Panic was not my first thought but it rapidly replaced my urge to grab and load the shotgun hanging ominously over the mantle..but to my credit..that passed when I realized I had never actually bought ammunition..it was just a guy thing..🤔 ?
My dog stood there sheepishly (honestly..for a moment she actually looked like Fluffy our leader ram!) with her tail wiggling and a nervous smile covered in partially chocolate covered evidence hoping, I think, that I would be just as happy to eat the grapes (that she only licked and tested a few of) instead of noticing the obvious missing box of my favorite handmade chocolates. As I stood there assessing what comes next Lady sat and began eyeing the grapes she left behind and watched curiously as I picked up the detritus and did a quick internet search on how much chocolate dogs can eat before their digestive track loses all sense of poise and self-control. The answer..”None! Chocolate in ANY amount will KILL your dog!” So off to the local farm vet...who giggled and rewarded my dog with a digestive biscuit while asking (the dog) how her tummy felt and whether it was good chocolate! I answered for the dog who had foregone all evidence of sheepishness and was inspecting the vets pockets for more digestives.
Turns out that chocolate only effects some dogs and most are just fine. Evidently the nearly 1 billion people who write the anecdotal information which we find at the end of a 20 second search engine quest are largely misinformed and given to either nervous hysterics or outright lawerly prevarication and fear monging.
The veterinarian smiled charmingly as she collect $186.12 plus 8.7% state sales tax and told me to keep an eye on her, make her comfortable and make sure she had lots of water..so I’m out my favorite chocolates, the half day it took me to go buy them, the rest of the day I spent watching my dog get pet and sweetly talked to by strangers, my FAVORITE CHOCOLATES!, and now gone was the pleasant afternoon set aside for lazy viewing of streaming videos of farm animals and blooper reels..life just isn’t fair sometimes!
Well I know you’re all wondering.>yes, Lady is just fine! I still have a hankering for fine chocolates that has so far gone I rewarded, because the veterinarian has my annual budget for dark handmade chocolates, and my hound seems even less inclined to do anything whatsoever that I dreamed my ‘next dog’ would learn and I forgot that she had licked the grapes after ‘grooming’ herself earlier in the day and I absentmindedly popped a few in my mouth before the realization reoccurred to me...I need alcohol!
