This shall be a series of posts to expose all of Lucy's dirty little deeds!
This first even took place quite awhile ago before we came back to school. They day before we came back to school actually.
As Lucy has some issues with anxiety and fear, it was decided that perhaps a course of anti-anxiety medication might be helpful for her long day of travel. Unfortunately, these drugs (benzodiazepines) don't tend to work the same way they do in humans, and can have unpredictable effects on animals. In humans, examples of these drugs include xanax and valium, and they are used to treat anxiety and panic, as well as other things as they are well known for producing "relaxation." In animals, they can cause the same effect, or they can make them more aggressive, more anxious, or have little to no effect. Fun right?
Anyhow, the medications had some odd side effects for Lucy. I don't think they really did much for her anxiety, and she actually showed some signs of separation anxiety during that time (yikes). She also seemed a little bit more on edge. All in all not a drug I'd use again on her, but just because I don't think it really helped her at all.
To get to the heart of this story, I have to preface it with another brief one. You know those weird shredded rawhide treats that you can buy at pet stores at Christmas time that are shaped like various Christmas-y items? My uncle had given Lucy 2 for Christmas. I hadn't gotten around to giving them to her (insert vet student nutritional analysis haha) and so they had been sitting on my dresser for a few weeks.
Back to the story. Thursday afternoon (the day before I left), I went out to run some final errands. Lucy normally stays in my room while I'm gone (sometimes she's allowed out in the house, but she tends to retreat to my room anyway, so I generally just get her in there - not that it would keep her in if she decided to hop it) and usually I find her curled up on my pillows or sitting on the end of the bed waiting for me when I get home. Nothing different that afternoon when I arrived home, but a few things from my dresser had been knocked to the floor (including a package of chocolate!). I didn't really notice anything missing and was extremely relieved to find the chocolate untouched, and so I went about my ways. Lucy didn't even really act guilty (now she does) so I assumed nothing happened. After sitting on my bed for several minutes, I realized there were a bunch of red crumbs all of the floor, and a sweeping scan of the room found me two empty plastic wrappers. Little sneak stole and ate both goodies while I was gone!
Not really a big deal, but since it was less than 24 hours before we were going to be spending an entire day on airplanes and in airports, it was less than ideal to be dumping large quantities of foreign food into her GI tract. Thankfully the repercussions were extremely minimal. I really lucked out there! If it had been one of my parent's dogs, I'm sure massive amounts of diarrhea and maybe even some vomiting would have occurred!
Silly dog! Stay tuned for part 2!
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