Devil Dog

So, I have come to the conclusion that Satan himself possesses my little doggy on occasion. Yesterday would be one of those occasions.

I got home late yesterday (working out some details with the seamstress for the crate cover design) and was on a phone call with one of my graphic designers, only to be interrupted by my roommate (he can be rather rude at times) who stated he had something important to tell me. What, pray tell, did he tell me, you ask?

Well, it turns out that Matza somehow climbed over the barrier he built to keep her out of his bedroom during the day (but which allows his cats to come and go) and not only got into the cat litter, BUT she also found and ate an entire bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans! Now, of course chocolate is never a good thing for dogs, but it does take a very large quantity to kill them. It usually just makes them vomit to get it out of their system. Matza chose not to vomit. Instead, she chose to leave a big ol' pile of nasty on the freshly-cleaned living room carpet. But, that was not the only consequence of her snacking.

Chocolate-covered espresso beans do have chocolate on them, obviously, but they also have the espresso bean...complete with caffeine. My dog is hyper enough without caffeine. I, unfortunately, got to experience Matza on caffeine last night and this morning. It's still not out of her system. At one point, I was begging her to drink a ton of water to help dillute the caffeine in her system. I couldn't handle it. By bed time, she had not only terrorized me relentlessly, but the cats also fell victim to this possessed pooch. She took to biting their tails, in-between running underneath them while they walked. She had seemingly calmed down enough to sleep, so off to bed we went. Note the word "seemingly".

No sooner had I fallen asleep than I was woken by Matza literally running in circles around the perimeter of my bed. She couldn't have cared less that I was there--she just ran over the top of me. I grabbed her and wrestled her to the bed (surprisingly tough when she's on caffeine, even though she's only 7 lbs.) and tried to get her to calm down. That worked for a little bit. An hour or so later, the terror with a tail was at it again, but this time, she added some barking for that extra special effect. I yet again tackled her. After the fourth or fifth time of this, I almost layed on top of her for the rest of the night. At 7:00, she was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed and then jumping up on top of me after so many paces. I pinned her under my arm and could feel her heart beat going like crazy.

She settled down for a few minutes--pinned to the bed the entire time--but as soon as my alarm clock went off, she was barking and running around the bed and the room. While I got ready for work, she kept coming in and pacing around the bathroom to let me know she was ready to go outside. I made her follow our usual routine, which drove her nuts. Once we were out the door, she nearly choked herself by running to the end of the leash and pulling harder. Repeatedly. I seriously was ready to cut the leash and just let her run to wherever her little caffeinated heart carried her.

We'll see how she is tonight, but for her sake, she'd better be much, much calmer or she's getting the Vodka that Erik suggested I give her in the first place. It's either that or a priest to cast the devil out of her. Either way, the caffeine must go.