1stGen.org

by **dpuckett** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 1:39 pm

Got this in an email from my mom.....DP

We have a fox terrier by the name of Jasper. He came to us
in the summer of 2001 from the fox terrier rescue program.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of
adoption, imagine taking in a 10-year-old child you know
nothing about and committing to doing your best to be a good
parent.

Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the
cost of the project was downright obnoxious, it was 20 years
overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for
family, extended family, and a lot of friends that I like
more than family most of the time.

I was assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast
dinner rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend.

I am still mad at the electrician for getting the new oven
hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole
house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wednesday evening
and to reheat Thursday morning. Since the kitchen was
freshly painted, you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the
rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams latex paint #586, I put
the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room
to rise for five hours.

After three hours, Perry and I decided to go out to eat,
returning about an hour later. An hour after that, the rolls
were ready to go into the oven.

It was 8:30 p.m. When I went to the living room to retrieve
the pans, much to my shock, one whole pan of 12 rolls was
empty. I called out to Jasper, and my worst nightmare became
a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a
combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire
man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. Even his
cheeks were bloated.

I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds
of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be
OK; however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every two
hours for the rest of the night.

Who knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any
more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice it to say
that by the time we went to bed, the dog was black, white,
and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed
for the night.

Naively thinking the dog would be all better by morning was
very stupid on my part.

We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing, we put the
dog out to take care of his business. Well, the dog was as
drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into
walls, falling flat on his rear. Most of the time when he
was walking, his front half was going one direction and the
other half was either dragging the grass or headed 90
degrees in another direction. When he ran down the small
incline in our back yard, he couldn't stop himself and
nearly ended up running into the fence.

His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon. I
endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second
call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had
fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk.

He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go
through, it would wear off after about four or five hours.
He then told me to keep giving the dog Pepto Bismol.

Afraid to leave Jasper by himself in the house, Perry and I
loaded him up and took him with us to my sister's house for
the first Thanksgiving meal of the day.

My sister lives outside of Muskogee on a ranch (a 10- to
15-minute drive). Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124
less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the
console of the car between Perry and me, we took off.

Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but
believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen
unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure
Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a
drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst
of it.

Now he was beginning to pass gas and it smelled like baked
rolls. We endured this for the entire trip to Karen's. We
were thankful she didn't live any farther away than she did.

Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister's garage with the
door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first
Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of
conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the
garage to witness my drunken dog, each returning with a tale
of Jasper's latest endeavor to walk without running into
something. Of course, as the old adage goes, "What goes in
must come out," and Jasper was no exception.

Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked
yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up
my behind, but alas a dog's digestive system is quite
different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed
blessing when we prepared to leave Karen's house.

Having discovered his "packages" on the garage floor, we
loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor.

This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of
water from the hose hit the poop on the floor, and the poop
on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like
Portland cement beginning to set up and cure.

We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no
one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my
hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off
of the floor. And as if this wasn't degrading enough, the
dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and
left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be
brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely, so we
took him home and dropped him off before we left for our
second Thanksgiving dinner at Perry's sister's house.

I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is
back to normal, both in size and temperament. He has had a
bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear, I
presume. I am also happy to report that just this evening I
found two risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet
door.

It appears he must have come to his senses after eating ten
of them but decided hiding two of them for later would not
be a bad idea. Now, I'm doing research on the computer: "How
to clean unbaked dough from the carpet."

And how was your day?