Some Worrying Developments

A few things have come up since yesterday that are potentially troublesome, I think.

One, Sam and I did a four-mile walk on the Baldwin bike trail yesterday afternoon, and he was dragging by the end of it. Granted, our usual walks are a mile, but you'd think if he has the energy to jump in and out of the pool a dozen times and swim and fetch for an hour, he could walk (not even run, but walk) for awhile. I gave him water breaks and he had rest stops for other trail-goers to pet him, but he was still sucking wind by mile 3.

This could be due to a variety of reasons. 1) Sam's lazy. 2) Four miles was too long for him, even though it was overcast and coolish. 3) Sam has eaten something he shouldn't have.

Me, I'm going with option three. I've suspected that Sam may have swallowed either some stuffing or a bit of fur fringe from one of his toys a few days ago before I realized he'd finally torn it up and threw it out. (Which he was not happy with, by the way, and went and sat with Dad and wouldn't look at me for a few hours after. The pouter.) He had a pretty gurgly stomach afterward and had some god-awful gas for awhile. The morning after he was unusually subdued and lethargic, but he pepped up again by that afternoon after relieving himself of the blockage (which he stopped and did on the fenceline right after he found the cat). No swollen belly and no apparent pain, and obviously the pipes were still working, so we thought nothing of it.

Today, of course, Sam makes me wonder again what else he could have eaten. I let him inside and he wandered off for awhile before I realized he was missing. When I called him back, he'd "fetched" the box of tissues from Mom's vanity.

Uhhh.... Gesundheit?

Now, given the way he's holding the box and the fact that no fresh tissues were sticking out of the top, I'm wondering if he ate a few. I certainly hope not. I think they're antibacterial.

And of course there's still the possibility that he ate some of the metal bristles from his brush, which he pulled down one day two weeks back and set about de-bristling. I counted the holes in the brush and counted the bristles I'd collected from the floor with a magnet, and four were still missing. The bristles are about an inch and a half long but with rounded tips, so I'm hoping if he did eat them they haven't punctured anything. I think Sam would be showing more signs of pain if they had.

Moving on to Troubling Thing #2, Sam has discovered his first mole. It was lying dead on the grass today and I walked by it, hoping Sam wouldn't notice it. He bounded after me, passing the mole--did he miss it?--but then he abruptly stopped, all his fur on end, and sniffed his way back to where the mole was lying. He continued to sniff it vigorously until I scooped it into an empty soda ash bucket and threw it over the back fence.

Since I didn't take a picture of the real
dead mole (gross), this is a dramatization

What's so bad about this, you might ask. He's just sniffing a dead mole. How bad can it be?

How bad can it be. Honestly.

Bud and Thor, our old Labs, were mole-hunting machines. We'd come home to find four-inch by twenty-foot long trenches wending their way through our yard like miniature canyons. The dogs would smell the mole, start to dig, and then continue digging wherever the mole fled underground. Trust me, crop circles got NOTHING on mole trenches.

So this is why it's bad. Because Sam has the scent now. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before more mole trenches start appearing. Sam just better hope for his sake that no moles tunnel under my flower garden, because I will skin that dog alive if he tears up my flowies. (Not literally, but you get the point. No calling PETA on me.)

And the third worrying development: Sam's been having nightmares. For the past couple of days, he's been starting out of a dead sleep, barking his head off. And not the play barks or the "speak" barks he uses for us, but the booming barks he uses when he sees people walk by on the street or is trying to chase a stray dog away from our yard (which he did at only 3 months old; I was impressed). I'll come over to see what the matter is, only to find him lying there with his ears pinned back, his eyes wide, looking all around him. I have no idea what he's dreaming about, or what could possibly be starring in his nightmares. I mean, the sort of monsters in his dreams would be The Peanut Butter Boogeyman, or maybe the dreaded Zombie Rawhide.

The only things I've seen Sam truly afraid of are thunderstorms (a potential candidate for his dreams, given these nightmares started after our last big storm), baby gates, and the ice cream truck. He actually peed himself in fear when the ice cream truck came by the first time. So maybe he's dreaming of being chased by an ice cream truck while baby gates fall on him during a storm. I'm not sure. I just want my Sammy to have sweet dreams again.

P.S. The Florida Wildlife Control site lists these among moles' problems: "moles in the attic of the house" and "moles endangering pets or stealing food." First off, how is a blind, burrowing rodent going to infest your attic? As long as you aren't a hobbit, you should be safe from that particular threat. And just what sort of mutant moles are big enough to actually endanger a pet? Certainly no dog or cat is small enough to be in any peril. Maybe if you had worms as pets, and kept them outside, underground, then you'd be in trouble. But at that point, you kind of deserve it for having outdoor worms as pets, don't you?