Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What goes in

He's sorry. 
Buck the Dog wants me to tell you that he didn't mean to actually eat the child's sock that was covered in yummy applesauce. Honest. He just wanted to sniff it and taste it, and... 


I noticed the child removing the grody sock and leaving it on the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the dog lying down (in hindsight, I realize, conspicuously close to said sock). I turned around to do wash the baby's bowl. I half-registered the dog leaving the room rather abruptly. Had I been more alert, I might have heard the choking and gulping noises that must have followed. 


The problem is, I have a lot on my mind these days and I clearly can't pay close enough attention to everything going on around me. But blinking has its consequences


The concern is not so much for the loss of the sock, but for the GI issues that will likely follow. True, it could be worse. It could be any of the foreign objects that the dog is known or suspected to have ingested in the past, such as:
  • A huge glob of bathroom garbage (which is especially gross considering what goes into bathroom garbage.)(Excision surgery #1);
  • The jar of Clark's Aunt Corkie's jalapeno jelly (no, the actual jar. We found the lid, and there was jelly smeared on the floor and wall so we know it was consumed, but what happened to the glass container after it smashed to the ground remains unclear);
  • A brown leather wallet with $20 in smaller bills;
  • A yellow-and-white-checked kitchen rag (Excision surgery #2); 
  • Countless pairs of underpants, various styles and colors;
  • A tennis ball, removed in-tact (Excision surgery #3); or
  • A bar of delicious coconut soap (suds out both ends for days -- cleanest spots our dingy living room rug had ever seen).
Those of you who are canine owners can appreciate that we are fairly intimate with the contents of our dog's poo. Not out of fascination, mind you, but out of logistics. So we generally know when things make it out the other end, and mysteriously, not all of them do.


Humans and other mammals have enzymes in saliva that begin to break-down food molecules when we chew - a stage in the digestive process called mastication. But digestive enzymes are not present in dog saliva.* A dog's mouth is pretty much just the entry point. Saliva lubricates food to make it easier to swallow, but chewing is more fun than than fun-ctionThis is why dogs often gulp down alarmingly large chunks or whole objects. 


Instead, dog digestion really starts in the stomach. Dogs are equipped with gastric acid made up of an especially potent and low-pH mix of Hydrochloric acid (HCl), potassium chloride (KCl) and sodium chloride (NaCl). Food spends as long as 48 hours in the stomach while those compounds go to work.


Dog stomach juices do a great job of tackling most proteins. They are not so good at breaking down rubber, plastic, styrofoam, cotton fiber, squeaky, fuzzy, wood, or metal. And this is why dogs, who tend to chew less because it's not important and therefore may not notice when they -- oops -- swallow things that do not consist of actual food, are prone to getting intestinal obstructions: 


Diagram 1.1: Dog Digestive Tract, courtesy Wikibooks


When things do make it into the intestines, the rest of digestion in dogs happens comparatively quickly thanks to their very short large intestines. 


All of this is to say, I am waiting for the sock to hopefully emerge at some point in the next 2-3 days. If it doesn't, we may be in for Excision Surgery #4. In the meantime, opening the windows and suffering the stinky consequences of my absent mind. 


*A side note: this is partly why dogs do not digest carbohydrates well; mastication is important for breaking down carbs.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Yikes! What the...?

March 1 2011
Ok, ok. I know technically how this happened, but even seven-and-a-half months in, I can't believe it. 


Wee Dollie, sweetest Dollie, is not yet walking. She does not have words. She still eats peas. She is still cutting teeth. She is very much still in nappies. 


And yet here [imminently] comes Number Two, "The Little Dude." 


He's a mover, a shaker, and a troublemaker, I can pretty much already tell. Even if I'm wrong and he turns out to be the mellowest squishy lump of a baby in the world, one thing's for sure:  


We need to brace for impact. 


I'm more intimidated -- terrified, really -- about bringing another baby on board. I think it's because last time it was a great mystery, a wonder, an adventure. This time, we know exactly what we're getting into. (And I should note that Baby #1 is an absolute delight. She has her moments, but she has generally slept through the night since she was only months old, which any parent will tell you is the ultimate golden gift from the universe.) 


Between FT work and a one-year old, I haven't had much time to focus on being pregnant. But at this stage, it's hard to ignore: contractions, heartburn, bloating, creaking, peeing, tossing and turning, trying not to dwell on the fact that I have a small-but-growing human churning about in my abdomen...


Spending these final weeks attempting to organize the house, get things tied up at work, file the paperwork I've ignored for the last year, finish tiling a bathroom (somehow, I always end up tiling a bathroom in the last weeks of pregnancy?). But I'm being a little more realistic than last time about what I can accomplish -- at least I let go of finishing my dissertation, learning French and mastering the guitar before the baby arrives. I figure all that can wait until retirement.