Oh, Max!!

A while back, we had an incident in our home with our dog.  We have a rescued beagle, Max, age @ 12 years,  with many food issues and the "incident" was a biggie.  Peanut and I had just made some yummy curry chicken salad with the help of Trader Joe's. (Oh, how I miss you TJ's). We had eaten the delectable salad in a wrap, flour tortilla to be specific.  Max loves most foods, except for bananas and oranges.  These are the only safe foods for Peanut to snack on without our guidance, or she would probably draw back a bloody knub.  I feel as though I should say, for those of you who have not met him, that he really is a sweet dog.  He will snuggle with you and keep you warm. And he always seems to know when to give you love when your heart is a bit sad.  However, on this dreadful day, he decided to jump up and reach for the flour tortillas, which just so happened to be underneath the Pyrex bowl of curry chicken salad.  He was successful in acquiring the plastic bag of tortillas and realized he had gained a big bonus of a bowl of chicken salad.  The Pyrex bowl shattered on our tile floor and Max proceeded to ingest the entire contents, large chunks of Pyrex included.  I will stop here to say that I honestly believe this will be Peanut's first memory that she will share with her therapist, which I fully support, in years to come.  I am a mess, looking at Max's blood all over the floor as he continues to devour whatever he can.  At this point, I am begging Peanut to,  "Please go watch Dora!!!".    I call my husband in a panic who is working almost 200 hundred blocks away, which in Manhattan means  he is easily a half hour or more away.   Fast forward, 2 surgeries and $5,000 later.  Yes, that's five thousand.  He was a miracle dog.  After removing large shards of glass, the vets could not believe he survived.  

Well, here we are again. Today, I am feeling a bit under the weather,  but felt the need to organize the cupboard with the peanut butter jar.  If there's anything Max loves much more than curry chicken salad, it's peanut butter.  Bread is first, but peanut butter is a very close second.  I dropped the glass peanut butter jar on our tile floor and Max was right there to take advantage of the situation.    I yelled, " If you eat this glass, you are dying this time!!!"  I am not proud of this moment.  But I had hit my limit with this dog today.  I remember right after I gave birth to Peanut, a very honest friend referred to our dog saying, "Don'tcha love him just a little bit less?".  It's kinda true.  He did get much lower on the totem pole. However, today, I was reminded that I was not just speaking, okay, yelling at my dog.  I was yelling at Peanut's dog.  I broke her heart a little today.  Oh yeah, I should add, we interceded in time and no glass was ingested, that we are aware of.  But I could tell she was sad to the edge of tears. I apologized to her for saying that to Max, admitting that it was wrong and she so sweetly said, "Even when you yell at Max, I still love you."  Oh, do you hear the cracking of my heart?  I honestly want to give him away at least twice a week or more.  But then he snuggles up to me at night and I forgive him.  More importantly, Peanut snuggles up to him and loves on him and he just takes it so sweetly.  So disaster averted and lesson learned.  He's not just my dog anymore.