I don’t know about yours, but my dog seems to view spring as an opportunity to find and eat discarded food that had been left on the ground before our beautiful Canadian landscape was coated in snow.

This means that when we go for a walk in the spring, Biscuit is sniffing out anything that has been sitting under snow for months.

What possesses a dog, one who eats great food at home, to want to eat something that is rotting? Just a couple of weeks ago, my innocent-looking cocker spaniel found what I’m sure he thought was treasure in the neighbourhood. I’m not sure what it was and as quick as I am, I never saw him pick it up. To be fair, I usually always notice these things, and I’m vigilant about keeping an eye on what he is sniffing on the ground. I’ve often had to pry his mouth open and remove something disgusting.

Anyway, this one night he did get into something and we woke up to find biscuit’s...well, ‘leavings’... all over the second floor landing, his preferred location to be sick.

Of course, I wasn’t thrilled. He is well trained and this isn’t something he normally does. Unfortunately, the situation continued when we took him outside for his morning walk and my significant other went home at lunch to check on him and found that there’d been more mess and that Biscuit just wasn’t well. Oh boy! That’s when we realize that he must have gotten into something.

I know my dog. Even though his stomach was a mess, he still had lots of energy, wanted to play and was still interested in food, so he wasn’t “take-him-to-the-vet” sick. He had, more than likely, eaten something horribly disgusting and was sick because of it. 

Of course, fate being what it is, this happens on a Friday and we’re going to Mont Tremblant for the weekend to go skiing. Biscuit usually comes with us on these weekends. He definitely is coming this trip!  We try to take him out every hour hoping it will pass, but by the next morning he’s still the same.

So off in the car I go to the pharmacy in St. Jovite to purchase Imodium, probiotics and, just in case, Pepto Bismol. I get back and cut one Imodium in half, based on his size (1mg per 20 lbs in tablet form every 8 hours).  We leave him plenty of fresh water so he doesn’t dehydrate and take his food away. We won’t feed him until that night when we’re back.

It’s funny, but dogs are pretty similar to people. When humans are sick, we eat bland food. Well, that’s really the best for a dog too. After skiing, we stopped at the local grocery store and bought chicken legs, rice and a can of pure pumpkin. I boiled the chicken and rice together. After it was cooked and cooled, I put an even mix of the chicken and rice into his bowl and mixed it up with the pumpkin. Pumpkin is very high in fibre and helps regulate the digestive system. With that I added the contents of one capsule of probiotic. I mixed it all, he ate it all up and he loved it!

We continued with that for about a week, just to be on the safe side. I finally stopped giving him Imodium and started Biscuit on his regular food again. We were a little worried that he wouldn’t want to eat his food after enjoying a week of “people food”, but that wasn’t the case. He gobbled up his own food and has been okay since.

So we’re back to watching him like a hawk and making sure he doesn’t get into anything. You would think that they would learn and not look for scraps again. But no, the other night I was walking him and he found an old piece of stale bread and put it in his mouth. Luckily I saw him do it and was able to take it out.

If it’s not the kids you have to watch, it’s the dog.