One of my favorite Cookie stories ever (as published in Chicken Soup for the Soul a few years ago!!)
PART 1:
I met a friend for a hike through the woods with our dogs a few weeks ago. We trekked out into some state land in Michigan, off trail, near Lake Dubonnet, and let the dogs off leash. Cookie, our Golden Retriever, was just 10 months old and looked tiny next to my friend’s dog, a gray, sleek Weimaraner. It was early spring with snow still on the ground, and we let them run.
Back at home, an hour later, Cookie came over and laid her head on my lap. Oddly. Lolling about. I chalked it up to her big hike.
Then I got up. And she didn’t.
She tried, but she stumbled; then she fell and sprawled out on the kitchen floor. Panic.
I tried to talk to her, but her eyes would look at me and then roll away. I picked her up and put her on her feet. She peed all over, and then she fell down.
I made the kids leave the room. She was dying!
I called the emergency vet. (It was a Sunday, of course.) They had us bring her right in, and they flushed her system with charcoal, ran tests and hydrated her. They called us on the phone a few hours later to say that everything came back normal, and Cookie seemed to be coming out of it. But they had no answers on what had happened.
“We’ll keep her overnight and make sure she’s ok,” the vet told me.
First thing the next morning, I was down at the vet’s to collect my baby.
But they didn’t just hand her back to me. Instead, I was taken back to a bare room. With a single light. With two chairs. And made to wait.
Cookie’s tail drummed the cage bars in the next room and I could hear her telltale whine that she’d heard me. But still, I sat alone and waited.
What’s the deal?
I started to sweat. I took off my winter layers, my coat and purse on the floor. More thumping, more waiting.
Finally, the vet appeared. Without the dog.
I didn’t think twice though, instead I jumped on her in worry. “What made her so sick?” I was not ready to give up the hunt for an answer.
Unfortunately, neither was she.
The vet pulled up her chair. Quite close to me, face to face.
“Are you sure there’s nothing Cookie got into?” she asked, quiet and still.
“Nothing that I can think of,” I said, the guilt consuming me.
“Ae you positive?” she pressed.
“Yes.”
“Certain?”
“Yes...?” I was starting to doubt myself.
Long pause. Things were getting heated, and I hadn’t even seen the bill yet.
“THINK, Kandy!” She was exasperated, awaiting my confession.
“OK, OK...” I was buying time, up against the wall. “Wait, I know!” For some reason I felt like I was lying even as a I said the whole truth and nothing but the truth: “We painted. Did she lick the wall?”
“No.” The vet was unmoved.
I was down to my T-shirt by then, wringing with sweat.
What was happening?
Then, I finally remembered that we’d passed the remnants of a bonfire with leftover PBR cans and Boone’s Farm bottles.
“Wait! We walked by a party spot in the woods!” I nearly shouted. “It must have been beer!” That was it. My dog was drunk.
The vet held up one finger to silence me.
“Well, it wasn’t beer,” she said, “but we do finally have our answer.”
I waited, terrified.
“It was pot.”
I couldn’t speak, and when I did I’d never felt so goody-two-shoes in my life.
“Did you say pot?”
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