Things you can spend $600 on:

- Music budget for a wedding.
- Plane ticket to honeymoon.
- New tires for our car.
- A tub of cocoa powder?

I went to Crate & Barrel after work yesterday, but ended up going home early since business was super slow. Good thing I did.

I arrived shortly after Casey, who had come home to find Huey out of the basement (where he was supposed to be locked) after a long day’s work destroying the contents of the pantry – an entire box of oatmeal, a canister of protein powder, and most importantly, an entire unopened canister of 100% cocoa powder. He was shaking really badly and acting totally insane – racing laps around the Christmas tree and literally bouncing off walls.

Keep in mind, this dog has eaten a LOT of weird stuff that no animal his size should survive: entire tubs of protein powder, several boxes of South Beach Diet Bars (including wrappers), countless jars of peanut butter, a glass ornament, bags of coffee beans, pancake mix, and most recently, four 9” chocolate and Kahlua cakes. So typically we play the “wait and see” game with him, because if we rushed him to the vet every time he ate something strange we would live there. But this was way past “wait and see” – he was shaking badly and obviously not okay.

We rushed him to the Emergency Vet (with me running red lights and totally hysterical), where they immediately gave him something to make him puke, and put morphine in his eyes (no idea why). The doctor said he had eaten a lethal amount of the purest form of chocolate – not good. She handed us the estimate and said that he was very serious, but she could help him, and she “hadn’t lost one yet.”

Poor boy was hospitalized overnight and given lots of charcoal and fluids to flush out his system. We called throughout the night to check on him, and they said he was doing okay, just working on getting his super high heart rate to come down. We called this morning and were thrilled to hear he was cleared to come home. They said he needs a bland diet and will most likely explode poop everywhere, but sadly that is nothing new.

Looks like Huey the Destroyer finally met his match. And yes, we will be getting a dead-bolt for the pantry and I will never leave the basement door unlocked again (whoops, my fault).

I remember buying the cocoa powder (when I baked the four cakes Huey ate last month) and thinking I was surprised at how cheap it was. In the end it wound up costing me $600.

But you can’t put a price tag on unconditional doggie snuggles and love, right?

I love you, Huey boy.