So it seems Maggie is a hypo-allergenic dog that is allergic.  That is, she had an allergic reaction to a vaccine the vet gave her.  Of course, at the time she was having the reaction, Hubby and I erroneously thought the puppy was choking.  Which set off a chain of events that included panic stricken exclamations of “DO SOMETHING!  WHAT SHOULD WE DO?!  IS THERE SUCH A THING AS PUPPY-HEIMLICH?!  WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS DOG?!”   Of course there were multiple episodes of sticking our fingers down her throat to see if there was a foreign object lodged down there that we thought we could get out.  Something like a string, a penny (although where would she get a penny? It’s not like we’re throwing random amounts of change all over the floor and expecting her to suck it up like a vacuum cleaner) a piece of foam from her bed that she is determined to maul into chunks, a piece of my coach pillows which she has vehemently attacked, I’m sure out of sheer spite for me not allowing her to chew the baseboards…the list is quite endless so my death scenarios about my dog choking to her early demise were alive and well.

I was then imagining having to tell the neighbourhood how we killed our dog through a choking episode gone horribly awry. I would have to explain how it all went down with the Mags playing with me one minute, then choking wildly on some accidental piece of (insert object here).  I would be branded the WORST pet mommy on the planet and banned from ever owning any kind of animal ever again. I would be ostracized by my friends and community, forced to move and never able to show my face in public again.  It was all so traumatizing.   And how did I manage to raise three children virtually unscathed, so far?  Beats the fuck out of me.  They have more sense than to eat baseboards or suck up an arbitrary cache of loose change, I guess.

I was quickly on the phone to the Animal hospital who patched me through to the vet, who coincidentally, I had just met for the first time that morning, and she said she would meet us at the Animal hospital in half an hour.  In my mind I was screaming, ‘HALF AN HOUR?!!  SHE’LL BE DEAD BY THEN, BITCH!” , but in real everyday voice I said “okay” and hung up.

We were there in twenty minutes and waited for the doctor to show.  Maggie continually pawed at her face and made that “I’m-fucking-choking-and-you-evil-humans-are-sitting-in-a-random-parking-lot-doing-nothing-important” face, along with that open-mouthed gagging crap.  It was all so dramatic.

 At precisely 8pm, the technician arrived and let me in.  She took Maggie to the back to where I was sure she was to be x-rayed and examined with laden tweezers shoved down her throat all in attempts to remove the multiple layers of change I was sure she had inexplicably sucked up off the floor like a Hoover.  The vet came out a few minutes later to tell me Maggie had an allergic reaction to the vaccine she had that morning and after her antihistamine shot, and her anti-inflammatory shot, she would be fine.  I sighed with relief.  I was given directions in administering liquid Benedryl to my doggie prior to future vaccines in order to avoid all of the dramatic allergic reactions and panic-stricken shouts of “HELP ME, MA PUPPY IS DYING, DAMMIT!!!!”.  They patted my head and sent me and my puppy on our way.

So it turns out, I’m not a bad doggie mommy after all…as long as I keep tabs on all that loose change littering the floors….

Maggie’s not dead. Just sleeping. I know. Drama Queen!