Our Puppy Maple turned 15 weeks old on Friday. The day before she turned 14 weeks, which could have been included in my last post, she hacked up a wood chip. Yup. It was at about 4:30am and woke both my husband and I up. I was giving a voice lesson in the basement exactly 12 hours before when she decided to go into a flowerbed, even though it was almost completely cleared out of plants to be more dog-safe (more about that adventure below). The one thing I hadn’t cleared out was the wood chips.
Maple was on a leash but pulled over and snatched what my husband thought was a rock. He tried to get it out of her mouth but couldn’t and she swallowed it. When my student left and I walked into the kitchen he had this look on his face. He said he had called the vet just before they closed to ask what to do. At the moment there really was nothing to do but observe her. If she seemed off and not like herself, started getting diarrhea or vomited… As he was telling me this she was running around with her toys and totally herself, so I opened the fridge to pull out some leftovers.
We were both relieved that what she hacked up was not a rock. It was a good sized, brown wood chip, about the size of a pink eraser you hold in your hand, flat, but more rounded instead of rectangular. I shall not include a picture here, you’re welcome. Anyway, glad that’s over.
Maple, 15 weeks old, fox red, female Labrador Retriever.
If you missed any of my previous posts, they’re listed below.
Catch up here:
Puppy Go Bag: Preparing for a puppy after losing our family dog
Puppy First Days Home: Meet Maple!
Puppy Adventures: weeks 8-9
Puppy Adventures: weeks 9-10
Puppy Adventures: weeks 10-11
Puppy Adventures: weeks 11-12
Puppy Adventures: weeks 12-13
Puppy Adventures: weeks 13-14
Plants that are not for doggies
This recent adventure brings to mind something I did about a month or two before we got her, which was researching what plants are harmful to dogs. I recently found this fantastic list from the ASPCA® (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List — Dogs.
I removed two fairly robust rhododendrons. If you’re not familiar, these are a bush that flowers. You could not trim ours enough, and we typically pruned it at least twice a year. They’d always grow over the edge making it hard to mow up close to it. The bees liked them, but they also were not the best plant for the location and looked a bit messy. Our dog Savy never ate them, but they are apparently very toxic to dogs, so I cut them down to the ground. I’ll see in the spring if I can dig up the roots better.
After Savy died, I found comfort in seeing yellow iris bulbs come up that I had planted the fall before. If you’re into gardening and flowers, here’s a couple of other posts you might like: Secret Spring Garden Blooms and Flower Power. I had to pull the irises up when we knew we were getting Maple. They were fairly easy to quick pull up and move to a different spot on the side of the house out of her reach. I also moved a few clusters of daylilies and hostas. These two types of perennials are really hard to kill. This means there was no worry how careful I was in moving them, but also that if I missed any they’d pop right back up again. I had a spot to move them too that’s worked out.
Our next challenge is the tree that’s right in the center of all this. It’s a form of crabapple. It has flowers in the spring that fall all over the patio and lawn underneath it. It’s messy, and Maple has already tried to eat the berries that drop constantly too. Those seem to be there year round. It’s also one that constantly needs pruning to keep manageable. We are trying our best, but are more than likely cutting it down. I know. I love me my trees. I planted five this year in our yard, thirteen more trees since we moved in that are thriving. But the placement of this one is close to the house and will be exhausting to keep Maple from eating all it will drop.
This past week I took out most of the wood chips. It was a little bit labor intensive, but I did it over a few days here and there. I also removed the sunken brick boarder and then put it right back in after raising it a bit. After that I removed the last few little bushes, leaving only one. I replanted the ones I took out in a bare spot close by. These are not toxic to dogs but were not doing the location they were currently at anything special, plus were very oddly spaced. I’m excited to plan what will be in this area going forward, but I’ll leave that for another day. I’m thinking of going into the evergreen varieties! These are low maintenance, and have year-round color.
Maple was chasing her tail and then found her paw was a great toy too. (pictured above)
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