Cookie Monster

So you think Campbell's our Cookie Monster? Wrong. Campbell is our Cracker Monster.

THIS is our Cookie Monster.

Lexi. This past Wednesday, I was running around with a ton to do. Travis' Mom was coming Wednesday night to watch Campbell while we went to the Bobcats game. I had errands to run, cleaning to do, and still needed to grab a shower. Lexi polished off an entire package of Chips Ahoy cookies, as well as part of a package of uncooked rice and the dried flavor mix. You'd think I'd panic right? Nope! The weekend of my baby shower, Lexi ate an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies and an entire batch of brownies. Whoever said chocolate is really bad for dogs hasn't met Lexi. She never even got sick or had an upset stomach! And the rice...well that was old news too. A few weeks ago, we pulled up in front of the house from church and heard Lexi inside howling. We had no idea what was wrong with her. We ran inside to find her frantically pacing by the back door. The reason? She gotten into a rice mix - only this time she'd eaten the whole package...including the zesty spicy sauce mix. Ouch. She went out quite a bit that day, but was fine. We didn't think much of it.

But the other day when she ate the cookies and the rice, I called the vet. They kind of freaked out. Not about the cookies, but about the rice! Apparently their concern was that the uncooked rice would expand in her stomach and potentially explode. Yikes. So they insisted I bring her in to induce vomiting. Not exactly how I planned to spend my morning!!! Lexi is fine. We are trying to be much more vigilant now about keeping food off the counter since she can obviously reach it.

In other pet news, we are sad to report that we've been having some major issues with Harley. We have been treating her for some urinary tract problems for well over a year. The medical issues will seem to be fixed, but yet she continues to pee outside her litter box. The vet says that now it's not even clear whether the problem is medical, behavioral, or a combination of the two. The problem is getting out of hand, and it's really affecting our quality of life. The "cat pee hit the fan" a couple of weeks ago when Harley peed on some of Campbell's things. It's not safe and it's not acceptable and we have been talking to our vet about what to do. Yesterday, we moved Harley outside to her new retirement condo - our garage. Our garage is detached and we weren't currently parking in it because we'd been working out in there. So we decided as a temporary solution, we'd see how she did outside. We have a nice radiator-style heater that has a thermostat, so we turned on the heat, put a radio out there for her, and took all her cushy beds, blankets and towels out to the garage. She did really well yesterday, and even stayed in the garage overnight. The vet suggested she may even like it out there better. She was obviously miserable in here and acting out, so maybe a change of scenery will be appreciated. We had planned to do the move gradually, but decided it might be even more traumatic for her to go back and forth. Eventually, if this garage thing seems to work, we plan to let her start exploring the backyard since it has a six foot high fence. We are at the end of our rope and just looking for ways to let Harles stay a part of our family without ruining our house and all our things! It was a sad day for me and I'm still not too happy about kicking her out. But I know it has to be done and I am looking forward to having a cleaner house and less worries. Wish us luck during Harley's transition time!!!!!