Amy Lu's View

“StanLee B. and the Case of the Mysterious Hotdog.” It sounds like a cute children’s chapter book, doesn’t it?

Maybe someday it will be if I ever pursue a career as a children’s book author, but for now, it’s my name for a couple of scary, adrenaline-laced hours Chad and I experienced worrying about StanLee.

Before we go any further, let me assure all my gentle readers that STANLEE IS COMPLETELY FINE, so it’s okay to make light of the travails of his anxious pet parents.

Our hotdog-induced anxiety was not inspired by my pseudo-vegetarianism, but by StanLee finding, and of course eating, a hot dog he found in our yard. Yes, I saw StanLee trotting around proudly with the hotdog, but there was no way I was ever going to get him to come to me with it, much less surrender his hotdog treasure (#dogtraining fail, #whataboutpuppybootcamp?)

I am not certain of many things in life, but I am certain that we are a hotdog-free household, so the hotdog clearly did NOT originate with us. And while I hate to be paranoid and generally poo-poo fears about crime, my mind immediately leapt to the reports of dogs who have been poisoned with tainted meat that has been thrown into their yard.

I called our regular vet’s office, and while the assistant who answered the phone wasn’t that concerned at first, after consulting with the vet, she said we needed to make StanLee vomit by giving him some hydrogen peroxide ASAP.

I proceeded to have a complete meltdown. “We don’t have any hydrogen peroxide and how in the world would I get it in StanLee even if we did!…was hydrogen peroxide spray the same as regular hydrogen peroxide? What was my time frame? Could this wait until my husband, already on his way, got home?”

The assistant tried to be helpful, and told me that it had to be hydrogen peroxide but not the spray, and that hydrogen peroxide was inexpensive, and I could try a turkey baster as a delivery system. Internally I screamed:

“I haven’t been holding out on buying hydrogen peroxide because I’m cheap, and regardless of price I still don’t have it and do I have time to get it, and no I do NOT have a f#*cking turkey baster!!!”

So I ran (not literally) to CVS, bought a bottle of hydrogen peroxide (which yes WAS cheap and also the exact same percentage of hydrogen perxoide as the spray we already had), returned home, and successfully fed a tablespoon to StanLee. He didn’t like this and cried a little so my heart broke a little, but it wasn’t actually that difficult.

And he did not throw up.

Chad got home, he called the vet’s office (I couldn’t be trusted), and upon their instructions, gave StanLee another dose of hydrogen peroxide.

Still no throwing up. (This steel stomach from the dog who regulary vomits for no discernable reason other than looking at a plant?)

Another call to the vet, and the ominous direction to get StanLee to the emergency vet IMMEDIATELY. So StanLee had a lovely ride to the emergency vet, and we almost threw up from fear and stress.

The technician who did our intake at the emergency vet had apparently not heard of the crime of dog poisoning, and was rather mystified as to our concern. She kindly checked his vitals, said he seemed just fine and that even if he had ingested something dangerous it was now too late for purging to help, and we should just take him home and keep an eye on him. They didn’t even charge us, and the receptionist remarked that he wasn’t his first emergency vet visit (only 3 in one year…)

Blessedly, StanLee never suffered any ill-effects from his consumption of the hotdog of dubious origins. I’m still baffled by where this hotdog came from, and am beginning to doubt that I really even saw him with it (I was pretty sleep-deprived that day). I just can’t imagine the scenario where someone randomly, but not maliciously, threw a hotdog in our yard, especially in November. (Perhaps in the summer when many people are having cookouts like crazy a stray hotdog could get into the ecosystem and wind up in our yard).

I guess some mysteries are better left unsolved. Although if I do ever use this incident as the inspiration for a children’s book, I’m totally casting our cats as the criminal masterminds.