so, mauja hasn’t been eating for a week. or rather, when he has
eaten, he’s puked it all back up. while this might sound
immediately alarming, we’ve learned in the past that he has a
finicky stomach and occasionally can go a few days without eating, although
this has never gone on for a week. we usually sit and wait it out,
feed him a “bland” diet of boiled beef and rice and carefully
observe him for any of the serious danger signs, such as
instantaneous puking and lethargy. immediately puking after eating
likely means that he doesn’t have a mere upset stomach, but
rather something is obstructing his digestive tract.

today, i fed mauja ayet another savory meal of boiled beef and rice, and he
immediately lets me know he needs outside – now – and promtply
pukes. and this is no casual puke – it was, um, strained. bad. very
bad. the last time this happened we unloading our bank account for
emergency stomach surgery. on that particular occasion the vet
pulled an intact, large play toy “squeak” from his stomach, which
was just moments away from making its way into mauja’s intestines,
which is deadly.

i immediately call the vet and make the dreaded “emergency”
appointment for tommorrow morning and am told to “watch him
carefully”. i then go outside and slowly approach the steaming mass
of beef, bile and rice mush and find that neatly, almost elegantly,
on top of the mess there is a frightenly large piece of brown
glass. it’s roughly the size of the cross section of a large
avocado. luckily, it’s slightly smoothed around the edges as if
it’s been sitting in the back yard for a half a century.

based on the size, i can immediately deduce how it ended up in his
stomach. it’s the perfect size for playing “keep away” from
cadence. the dogs will play “keep away” for hours and hours and i
guess glass is as good as anything else. a slip and a tumble and
down the gullet goes the glass. even smoothed, i’ll can’t imagine how on earth the glass didn’t rip
his esophogous to shreds on the way down or up.

mauja has
immediately perked-up and has downed more beef and rice without
puking, so i’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll be paying the vet a
boatload of money tommorrow, just to have her tell us that he’ll be o.k.

sigh.