The dogs in this area have gone out plum out of their heads. (Yes, that is the technical veterinary term.) Twice in the last 24 hours I’ve found myself holding a dog’s chin, looking deep into their eyes, and asking “WHAT on Earth were you thinking?”

Case one – A very sweet slightly elderly lady returns home from visiting with a more elderly relative and can’t find her even more elderly (in dog years), deaf, small dog. She eventually finds the hole in the screen where he pushed through and jumped out the window. The second story window. She rushes outside to see if he is crumpled in the window well only to meet the neighbor who found him wandering around the yard and took him to her house so he didn’t get hurt. Except for a wrenched knee he seemed fine. Time will tell if anything else shows up.

Case two – A call comes in about a dog seen 10 days ago for a suspected intestinal obstruction. She is still on medication but now won’t eat and isn’t acting right. She is brought in by her female person while her male person looks around the yard to see if she is going to the bathroom. (What a dedicated puppy daddy!) I’m worried that she is not getting better but the owner says that she seemed to feel a lot better then suddenly go downhill again. While we are in the room the male person calls and says that he found a pile of vomit containing part of a bird, a lot of plastic, and part of an aluminum can. Yep, she felt better alright. So good that the x-ray confirms that she has a ball of metal in her stomach and an intestine full of pieces of presumably bird bones. Plastic doesn’t show up on x-rays so we have to wait until the surgery to see if that is still there.

Luckily I’m off for 48 hours so maybe this spate of irrational behavior will pass.