Too Much Coffee

Christian was getting into the trash outside. I had just thrown a bunch of old frozen meat and bones away while cleaning out the refrigerator, and was out of trash can space, so I put the bags on top of the trash cans. When our trash gets to that point, it's time for a trip to the dump.

Before we made it to the dump, Chris couldn't resist the smell. She was found gnawing on a rather large bone. I don't give them bones normally, just bone meal, so I promptly took it away from her, wondering where she found it.

Later, I noticed that she had gotten into the trash, and that is where she stole the bone from. I picked up some of the trash in the grass and told Chris that she was to stay out of the trash and that she was bad for it. She seemed to know that I was upset with her, clamping her tail to the underside of her belly.

Later in the day as I went outside and found two coffee bags on the lawn and picked them up also, talking to the dogs, that coffee is not an appropriate food for them. Those coffee bags still had quite a lot of ground coffee left in them, as I had tossed them when cleaning out the refrigerator.

I had a suspicion that Tam had helped herself to the open trash that Chris had gotten into. She will not get into the trash on her own, but can't resist it if it was opened. I noticed that she had a dirty nose.

That night I woke at 3am and Tam was on the bed shivering and panting at the same time. She was not feeling well.

I asked her if she needed to go out, and she jumped up and off of the bed. All three went outside, and Tam was out for a while longer than Kate or Christian.

I called her to come back in, and we went back to bed.

When I got up in the morning, I found an explosion on the landing upstairs. I let the dogs out and went and got the Petastic and some rags to clean up the mess. I also found an explosion down stairs also.

As I was cleaning up the messes, I noticed what I thought at first was dirt or something small and granular. I remembered the coffee bags that I had picked up, and put two and two together.

Tam is known in this family as Tam the Inhaler. I have never found a food that she will not eat! And when I grind coffee beans, and happen to drop one, she will come and eat it off of the floor. Coffee?

Tam had gotten into the coffee bags and had eaten the ground coffee.

Today she seems fine. I will keep an eye on her to make sure that her stools firm up. I would think that coffee is pretty bad for dogs, like chocolate is, but I am not positive about that. Too much coffee!