You can tell an editor has done a good job when the headline that he or she has written for an article makes you stop scrolling through your always-full newsfeed and click on the link to the story.
This headline caught my attention earlier this month from a story that was published in late October in Newsweek.
“Americans Reveal the Weirdest Things Their Dogs Have Eaten.”
My brain was a bit tired from all of the post-election reading that I have been doing since Nov. 6 as I try to make sense of many of the results and analyze what changes we might see in the coming months. This Newsweek article seemed like a good brain break to see if other pet owners out there have experienced as many hiccups as we have when it comes to trips to the vet because of what our dogs have eaten during the past four years.
Turns out they have — and it looks like maybe we haven’t had as bad of luck as I thought before reading the article.
The list from the Newsweek article included tree ornaments, dentures, winning lottery tickets, money, credit cards, Barbie doll heads, Vaseline, a stick of butter, the tail of a fabric squirrel and more.
My wife and I both still have our original teeth so there have been no dentures consumed in the Peeper house. We don’t play the lottery often, and we haven’t had to pry any credit cards out of our dog’s mouth. The last time I checked we didn’t have any Barbie dolls around the house either.
When it comes to the other items, however, we certainly can identify with the 2,000 dog owners who were interviewed for the story. We might even have them beat on a few items our dogs have eaten.
Jen and I brought our first dog home in the spring of 2020 — a golden retriever puppy who will turn 5 in February and now weighs more than 100 pounds.
During that first year, Santiago managed to chew up a few baskets my wife had bought in Africa, a Christmas tree ornament and part of our leather recliner.
I also learned during that first year that Santiago was an avid reader, as one afternoon while I was at work he devoured Pete Buttigieg’s book “Shortest Way Home” that my wife had bought me a few weeks prior for Christmas. I learned not to leave my books just anywhere around the house that year.
About a year later, we were on a walk around the neighborhood when I stopped to talk to one of our neighbors. As we chatted — and unbeknown to me — Santiago swallowed a small piece of hard plastic that he must have found in a pile of leaves. It finally came out after two trips to the vet.
We brought home our second dog in February 2023 — a Bernese mountain dog that we adopted from a rescue organization. Alicia will turn 7 in January yet still has the spirit — and the mischievousness — of a pup.
Despite being built like a tank and weighing more than 100 pounds, we discovered the hard way that she can easily and effortlessly get items off the kitchen counter or table if she wants.
One evening Jen set out on the counter a small box that had four butter sticks so they could soften overnight. The next morning, all evidence of the 1-pound of butter was gone — the box, the four sticks of butter and the waxed paper in which the butter was wrapped. Gone — as if it had never been there in the first place.
Thankfully our vet said Alicia would be OK after eating a pound of butter. I thought about giving her some flour and eggs to see if we might find cookies spread across the backyard the following day.
In addition to her love of saturated fat, Alicia is a connoisseur of stuffed animals. We frequently notice missing extremities from Santiago’s toys — ears, noses and more.
She understands better than most the proverb, “There is only one way to eat an elephant: One bite at a time.”
Perhaps we’ll have better luck in 2025 when it comes to our dog’s gastronomy.
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
