Last night my wife and I were running and errand and upon our return, found a half-eaten bar of Caress soap on the floor in the upstairs hallway. We have two dogs, her 15 year old Jack Russell and my 10 year old mixed breed (a kinder word than "mutt", somewhat like "pre-owned" replaced "used".) Somehow I just knew it was my dog who ate the soap but neither of them showed any signs or symptoms of stomach upset and both devoured their dinners without difficulty. We all went to bed around 10 and got up this morning with everyone seemingly OK. The dogs had their breakfast and Barrie, my wife, went to work. I settled down at my computer to post my morning blog.
About 9:00am, my dog, Lucky by name, verified that she was the perpatrator of the great soap caper. While I was in the shower she began vomiting up her breakfast. Being the kind, concientious creature that she is, she didn't want me to find a large puddle of regurgitated dog food on the bedroom carpet that I would have to clean. So, in her kindness, she left me four smaller puddles, scattered around the bedroom in various places. I got a large spatula (it probably sounds gross but it's the easiest way to pick it up) and a plastic plate and scooped up as much as I could, then got a towel and some spot remover and cleaned the four smaller spots. (Thanks to my dog's undying generosity, I wasn't scrubbing a very large, single spot!)
About an hour later I watched Lucky drinking some water from her bowl and thought "She must be feeling a little better." Ten minutes later she was up in the bedroom again getting rid of that nice water she had just consumed, once again insuring I didn't have one big puddle to clean by depositing it in two separate places. This time there wasn't much food mixed in - mostly water and a frothy substance that I took for saliva. That is, until I began cleaning the carpet again. With every scrape of the spatula the frothy stuff seemed to expand and get thicker. The more I scraped the more foam I got. Curiosity, or some crazy notion took me because at that point, for whatever reason, I decided to smell it (I know it's disgusting but I had to know). And I wasn't terribly surprised when the foam smelled exactly like Caress bath bar. I kid you not. Lucky was throwing up bubbles and foam from the soap she ingested last evening. If she had to puke, I can't complain too much about that.
She depositied several more throughout the afternoon, always being sure she didn't leave them in one, ugly, wet puddle.
Anyway, she seems to be better now as she hasn't unloaded anything else recently. I finished cleaning the carpet, all eleven spots, and made sure there was nothing else in reach that she might want to sample. I'm not taking her to the vet today because I still believe it was the soap she ate that made her sick and I don't feel it's worth $100 for the vet to tell me the same thing. I'd like to say she learned her lesson but she is a dog, after all. A much wiser one today than yesterday, I'd like to think, but a dog nonetheless.
Barrie suggested we change her name to Bubbles....
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