Monday, June 11, 2007

Stomach Love, a true story

Deb over at TiredMummy reminded me of this beagle story.

I grew up with beagles. The one we had they longest was named Pokey, short for Pocahontas. Those damn dogs will eat anything, absolutely anything.

Pokey used to hang out under the dinner table. She would eat the brussel sprouts that i managed to sneak to her. In that regard she was a godsend. One time she ate an entire pound of butter, including the box. Another time she ate a two pound tube of liverwurst, including the plastic wrap. Go Pokey!

She was also partial to dirty underwear, cat shit and used sanitary napkins. Not so cool.

My parents used to own a small lot on an island in the San Juans in Puget Sound. Not a big island. This island has no store, no motorized vehicles are allowed, and you have to get there via a private motorboat. So anything that you needed, you had to schlep up there with you, including all food and drink.

Our neighbors up there did not have a dog, therefore they were not on high alert with food like we were. Most food was cooked over the fire. These neighbors had gotten their steaks all ready and then returned to the cabin for something or other, probably more alcohol. They left four steaks on a tree stump. So you can guess what happened. They were pretty pissed off, and Pokey was quite sick. We had to give them some canned hash from out of the emergency stock.

Pokey's best stunt however, was the time she snuck next door and ate a half a pan of marijuana brownies. The neighbors had left them out while they went off for a screw. Apparently they were so strong that the people were only eating a half a brownie at a time.

My parents were quite concerned about Pokey, who was staggering around, zonked out of her little doggie mind, so they loaded her up on the boat and took her across the water to the mainland.

As Pokey was attempting to stagger across the front of the boat and jump off onto the beach, as she always did, someone watching from the beach commented on what an old dog she was.

"Nope," my dad replied, "she's just stoned."

40 comments:

peevish said...

Oh, if only Pokey could talk, the tales she'd tell.

My Mom used to have a cat named "Toke", given to her by her partner in dope, my Aunt Kathy. Toke's talent was for opening the sliding glass door by himself so's he could slip outside. He could work one powerful toenail into the crack and slide that door open just wide enough to make his escape.

peevish said...

WTF is up with that countdown clock?

Lynn said...

Ha Ha Ha...Alice B. Toklas brownies...that lucky, lucky dog!

Stucco said...

Did Pokey get the munchies?

meno said...

lisa, um, dude, like, you know, it was all, um, and shit, man! That's what she would say i think. I don't know what's up with the clock, i just liked it. So i swiped the code from someone else's blog.

lynn, i bet she spent the rest of her life looking for more.

stucco, she always had the muchies. Hmmm, maybe she was a stoner all along!

Schmoopie said...

What a hilarious image! A beagle, stoned out of her mind. Our dog Sal would've been right there partying with her, as he eats everything including plastic toys and whole wads of tissue.

flutter said...

LOL poor girl. Our Beagle always acted stoned....

Anonymous said...

You guys can your hash?

:)

Marshamlow said...

While my dog is not a beagle, she is an undetermined breed, she eats everything too. Only then she throws it all up, all over my pretty new carpet. She once ate the Egyptian papyrus paper with a beautiful marriage blessing painted in real gold that we bought in Egypt. It had our names in hieroglyphics too. I was really bummed.

Mrs. Chili said...

We have some friends who have a beagle whom I hate for just those reasons you mentioned here. True story: one afternoon, my husband sat down on their couch and put a sandwich on the coffee table in front of him. He had half the sandwich in one hand and was reaching for his soda with the other when the dog leaped from her hiding spot and snatched the sandwich FROM HIS HAND. We've never encountered such poor manners in an animal, and our friends were at a loss for how to curb that behavior.

Mrs. Chili said...

is the countdown clock to Bush's last day in office?

Special K ~Toni said...

That is hilarious! A stoned dog! Pokey sounds like fun, then again- it wasn't my steaks!

Anonymous said...

Ha ha. We had a schnauzer like that.

I think I'll forward this to my friend who just got a beagle pup. We tried to warn her....

Lynnea said...

Hey anyone who leaves their steaks sitting in the open on a tree stump deserves to lose them. I guard my steaks with a vengeance.

Same for the brownies.

I never knew this about beagles, and they look like such cute dogs.

ms chica said...

Cast iron stomach, that one. Patient too, my parent's dog snatched a family pack of steak off the back seat of the car once, she consumed packaging and all. She didn't wait for them to grill it first. Sounds like Pokey had a charmed life.

Gordo said...

Our first dog, Toby, was border collie-beagle cross. Yup, a genius garbage hound. Her favourite disgusting thing to drag from the trash was used coffee filter full of grounds. We had to put kiddie locks on the kitchen cupboards or she'd nose them open and trash the place.

She also taught us that hanging a dish towen from the refrigerator door handle was a bad idea. She managed to open the fridge by pulling on it and emptying the bottom two shelves.

Jeez, I miss her ... LOL

Bob said...

I had a cat in Greece steal a steak off of the grill once.

my dog only eats plastic, but then again I do not leave any real food where he could get to it - so maybe he'd do the same?

selfish dog - he should've shared the brownies.

karmic said...

Go pokey!! I loved reading this post. I am sure Pokey is in canine heaven now. :)
Oh and in the rather belated spirit of things, I do have a hands post up. :)

Lee said...

Poor dog was probably totally mystified as to why the world was wobbling the way it was.

Hilarious!

Susanne said...

Great story.

Anonymous said...

I read this out loud to my middle daughter and I laughed out loud. It's good to know that it's not just our beagles. They are intrepid animals.

meno said...

schmoopie, yeah, i only did a partial list of what she would eat. Revolting animal!

flutter, i think it's a characteristic of the breed!

d-man, of course, doesn't everyone?

marsha, don't you wonder why on earth a dog would eat paper? They are so odd.

mrs.chili, they always look so sorry afterwards, but you know they will do it again in a heartbeat. Great idea for the clock, maybe i'll reset it.

toni, hey man, it was the 70s, we were all stoned.

de, someone should warn them!

maggie, i guess they just weren't expecting a dog lurking in the underbrush, ready to pounce.

ms.chica, oh, she did her share of puking too. I try to remember all this whenever i get the urge to get a dog.

gordo, it is really incredible how ingenious a dog can be when it comes to getting into garbage, or finding food. Survival instinct i guess.

bob, did the kitty get his little toes burnt? Was it one of those wild cats that hangs around in Greece? It would be harder to get mad if that were the case.

sanjay, pokey is no longer among us, whether she's in heaven, i cannot say. I'll come over to see the hands.

lee, it's hard to even imagine what she might have made of the experience. She was never able to talk about it afterwards. :)

QT said...

This is hilarious! I used to have a Rott that ate styrofoam peanuts, only to throw up a million, trillion little white pieces for the following 24 hours. I say if you are going to eat it, at LEAST be able to keep it down!

Taradharma said...

that last line is priceless...I can see it will be useful for many occasions....

one of my dogs eats her chew toys, and then shits out the red and black threads. First time it happened I thought the poor thing was evacuating her very intestines.....

meno said...

susanne, thanks, it's pretty funny looking back.

deb, intrepid and stupid eaters. It's a good thing they are cute, otherwise we'd kill them.

qt, that makes no sense. I wonder why your dog did that. I guess we'd need a dog whisperer to find out.

tara, i think you are right, i plan to use that line when i am old.

TTQ said...

My Beagle has his own prescription for valium..Fletch (as in the Chevy Chase character)has a very pronounced personality and is the alpha dog in the house. Zeus is the Doberman who follows all of Fletch's wishes.. But back to the valium, he was doing that zig zag walk too after his first dose that the doc prescibed for a muscle relaxant, he has a stiff neck...now he's used to it and not quite as funny..

Whenever I go out to pick cherry or grape tomatos, they both pluck them out of the basket as quick as they can. Then I move the basket and they eat them from the plants..
Good thing Honey overplants everything..

Bob said...

I don't think it got it's itty bitty toes burnt, it sure wasn't limping when I saw it trying to run away with the steak.

it wasn't feral, but it wasn't quite domesticated either. it was the tom that impregnated our adopted 3-legged island cat. it was always hanging around, looking for some action and/or food. it got both while we lived there.

GEWELS said...

Reminds me of my neighbor's old beagle. He was left out one day all alone and when the owner came home she noticed something hanging out of her butt. Upon investigating she saw a little string- which she pulled and out popped- YUP- a tampon.
That's only one of Many, many stories about this guy. He was the STUPIDEST!

Anonymous said...

A stoned dog. That is mind-boggling. Wonder what the hell she was thinking. Did she eat the whole tray of brownies?! They must have had to pump her stomach!

Mother of Invention said...

I never had a dog and I never knew this about beagles. Poor stoned puppy! And I thought cats got into crap! What's a few shredded chairs and drapes eh?!!

Joan said...

I had a co-worker with a beagle. One day she was sitting in a chair in the living room when her dog came up behind her and grabbed the scrunchie in her hair and proceeded to eat the darn thing. Amazingly, the beagle suffered no ill effects from it!

meno said...

ttq, valium. Damn, i want some. Bet i'd walk funny too.

bob, did you live there or were you on vacation? I will go to Greece someday, i'd love to know what you thought of it.

gewels, oh NICE! And that reminds ME of my SILs dog who once ralphed up a tampon on the car floor in front of two men that she worked with. Dogs, they are revolting.

ortizzle,she apparently ate about seven of them. i don't think she had to have her stomach pumped, i think the vet just said to keep her up and moving for a few hours.

cats are models of fastidiousness compared to dogs. Maybe this is why i don't currently have a dog.

joan, don't you just wonder what would compel the dog to do that?

Scott from Oregon said...

What I want to know- is how do you know they stepped out for a screw?

I mean, WHO tells you that?

"Yeah, we just stepped out of the cabin for a screw. We were back in ten minutes..."

"...FIVE minutes, honey..."

"Yeah whatever..."

WHO tells you such things?

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Funny, funny story. I think it was no accident that Snoopy was a Beagle.

In my first marriage, we inherited my ex's mother's Beagle, Fang. If we went out without her, she took revenge by depositing one turd in the exact center of every bed. I'm sure she had calipers as her aim was infallible.

She slept in bed with my ex while I slept on the floor. True story. One of many reasons he's an ex.

alphawoman said...

Hilarious.

Bob said...

we lived on the island of Crete for two years, 1985 - 1987. Our children were born there. We really liked it there, the people were nice (on the whole, even if the kids were political (socialistic) and protested the american air base where I was stationed) and they LOVE family. The kids were our passport everywhere. The island is rich with history, the Palace of Knossos - the origin of the minotaur - and the Minoan civilization. It is pretty, though dry in the summer - lots of tourists then. The winters are wet and cold. We visited the island of Santorini and there is where you'll find the stereotypical whitewashed buildings with blue domes. Parts of Crete are touristy, parts aren't. I don't know much about mainland Greece, we only saw a little of Athens and nothing outside of it. I would definitely recommend visiting - but then I am a big advocate of visiting most anywhere.

gary rith said...

Gawd..........beagles. Our new beagle, pics posted today per usual, has a thing for dead worms. She has alreay eate all the cat toys.

meno said...

scott, This story became a family legend for both families. And as details began to emerge, this was one of them. Up at the island things were much more casual than in the city as there was NO ONE around. Clothing was sometimes optional, drugs were more freely used. Ever seen someone water ski wearing nothing but the top half of a wet suit? Yeah it was like that.

hearts, man, that's hostile. Both the turd and the sleeping on the floor. Glad you dumped them.

bob, that sounds lovely. I am so going, as soon as we get this kid out the door to college. :)

gary, yeah, i know, they are a marvel of stomach strength.

egan said...

Which island is this? I might have to go there.

OhTheJoys said...

We had a beagle named JJ, but he bit children. Not cool. Should've given him some of the brownies...