The Vomiterrier

One of the lovely things about mutts is that you can make up breed names for them. Yogi, formerly known as the Boxspringer (Boxer/Springer Spaniel mix), has become the Vomiterrier.

Dogs barf. This is pretty common behavior for dogs, probably because dogs are eager to put pretty much anything into their mouths. (Occasionally when a dog vomits, it's because he is actually ill or poisoned, as we learned to our dismay a few years ago, and lost one of our dogs.)

Yogi is the champion of putting bizarre things into his mouth, getting a tummy upset, and then trying to quell his nausea by, are you ready? - licking the carpet. Lick, lick, lick, lick. He will also lick upholstery. He cannot be stopped in his licking. Eventually, he vomits. Sometimes, he vomits while people are awake and can take instant action to remove him from the interior of the house. But usually, he waits until the wee hours of the morning, and then ...

Well, if you're lucky, he's not in the bed beside you. I have not been very lucky in this regard.

Or, you stumble around in the morning in stocking feet and - squash- step into something.

That something is often an incredible and unusual collection of really weird stuff that Yogi has managed to ingest. Dogs are just pretty damn weird, not unlike sharks in their ingestion habits.
If it fits, it's in. If it doesn't fit, I'll just chew it up into small enough pieces until it does fit. Plastic toys and cups, stockings, blankets, beanie babies, leather, plants, rugs, cardboard, rope, crayons, markers, pencils, pens, wooden and plastic spoons, well, the list is endless.

So for now, when we see Yogi licking the carpet, he's off to the basement for the night. Actually,
he's off to the top of the stairs next to the basement door to cry and whimper and whine all night. Except when he's licking the basement floor or vomiting.