Or,

You Never Know What Your Dog Might Find in Your Own Yard

Or,

What Blows Around Comes Around: A Mystery

Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong, I woke up on Monday morning, took one look at my normally happy-all-the-time little dog, and I knew something was the matter.

They say bad things come in threes.  Well, according to my count, we’re up to about six in the past few weeks.  Maybe I’ll blog about the other bad experiences at a later time (and maybe I'll keep some private), but for now, I’ll tell you about Fred.

Fred is my merry little Bichon Frise.  He loves everyone he meets.  If he met you, he’d love you. 

He’s 11 years old, weighs about 12 lbs, and spends most of his days perched on top of the sofa on a cheerful vigil, surveying the yard for birds, squirrels, deer, joggers, the UPS man and all of his favorite people.  Since I work at home, he’s rarely more than about four feet away from me and follows me from room to room, his white plumy tail flapping and his white beard giving the impression of a goofy smile.

One of the highlights of Fred’s day comes at about 7:00 am when he accompanies me down to the end of the driveway to get the Philadelphia Inquirer.  This past Monday morning, as I put on my mud shoes (the yard was muddy from Sunday’s storm), and I called out, “Fred!  Time to get the newspaper,” I did not expect him to lie motionless on the bed as if he hadn’t heard me at all.

One look in his black eyes told me something was very wrong.

He had vomited just before bed the night before, rather copiously (yuck), but other than that, he’d been his usual perky self all weekend.  In between the rain showers, he scampered outside with me, Peppy Le Pew-style. 

               What could have made him so sick so suddenly? 

“Oh Fred, “ said the veterinary technician, “You don’t look so good.”

               Waiting in the exam room for the vet, I overheard through the thin walls the choked voices of a man and woman saying goodbye to their beloved pet.  Been there, done that, I don’t EVER want to do it again.  Fred was so weary that he lay down on the metal exam table and leaned his chin heavily in my hand, as if he needed me to hold his head up.

The vet examined him.  If you’re a pet owner, you probably know how it feels.  You look into the vet’s face as he talks but the words don’t quite sink in.  It could be cancer, Addison’s disease, his kidneys, his heart, it could be something he ate, something he was exposed to.  Afterwards you’ll remember only bits of what the vet told you.

Tests were required.  I signed the estimate, knowing my husband was going to blow a gasket.  But as much as I love Fred, I knew my 13-year-old son loves him even more.  After all that had happened lately, I could not bear the idea of telling my son that his buddy had not made it.  As I left Fred with the vet, I felt just as bad as Fred looked.

The X-rays showed nothing unusual, the blood work was inconclusive, his heart rate was slow and all he did at the vet’s was lie there, barely breathing.  The vet gave him subcutaneous fluids and an injection of something they compared to Pepcid for his stomach.

At 8:00 pm when the vet’s office closed, my husband picked Fred up, with strict instructions to rush him to the 24/7 veterinary ER (even more expensive) “if anything changes.”

Monday night I had to lift Fred up to place him on the foot of my bed.

“I’ll check on him every hour.  I’ll set my alarm,” my son offered.

“No, you sleep.  I’ll do it,” I told him.

I lay there wondering, “if anything changes,” would it be kinder to take him to the ER or to keep him at home?  What could they do for him when we have no idea what it is?

But every time I checked him, I saw his chest going up and down and realized, yes, he’s still breathing.  Toward morning, when I touched him gently on the back, he rolled over exposing his belly for a belly rub, and I knew he was improving just a little.

On Tuesday morning after I returned from dropping my son at the carpool, Fred lifted his head and limply wagged his tail.

               All I could think of was he must have eaten something.  He was fine on Sunday, threw up once, then woke up sick and lethargic the next morning.  It had to be something he ate – but what? 

              I went out into my yard, my eyes keener than the day before, scanning the flower beds and overgrown patches in the back.  I scrutinized mushrooms and pine cones, wondered if there could have been a puddle of anti-freeze in the driveway, but of course it had poured intermittently all weekend, any puddle would be gone my now.

And then I saw what you see in the photo above.

It looked kind of like a cardboard toilet paper tube, but green.  I picked it up.  Inside, it was stuffed with something that looked like cotton balls.  After all the rain, it was soggy and deteriorating, and the cotton balls were tumbling out.

The label say, “DAMMINIX: A TICK TOXICANT.”

                Then I looked around more – there were three of these tubes in different parts of our flower beds. 

Phone calls to the vet and Veterinary Poison Control confirmed this is a mild poison, not usually lethal to mammals.  But Fred is a very small mammal, and his symptoms fit what you’d expect.  We can’t be sure, but we think it’s likely this is the culprit.

But how did a Tick Toxicant get in our yard?

               We would never use such a product, and we don't have a lawn service.  My first instinct was paranoia – Who would do this to a friendly little dog who never hurt anyone?  I thought of my one neighbor who’d kind of grumpy.  Maybe he hates Fred’s barking.  Should I report him to the police? 

               Then I remembered the rainstorm.  It had been very windy – so windy a neighbor’s back yard furniture had been blown down. 

             Probably someone upwind and uphill placed these little green tubes in their yard thinking it was harmless, thinking it was a very mild poison, thinking they should be able to protect their own yard from ticks.  Somebody probably scattered them out there, who knows when, and forgot all about it, never imagining the wind could carry these little packages of poison into the yard of someone they don’t even know, into the path of a merry little white dog who loves everyone he meets.

This morning what I said, "Time to get the newspaper," Fred hurried to join me, not exactly exuberant but he was on his feet again.   I suppose we’ll never know for sure whether it was really DAMMINIX that made Fred sick, or how the stuff got in our yard.  Four days later, Fred is now eating small amounts of bland food and gradually getting better.  

But I do realize how interconnected we are with our neighbors on every side and in every direction, and how what blows around comes around.