Is Nutella Poisonous to Dogs?

The kids are on a new lunch kick. They want me to send in these “snack wraps” that are made out of a flour tortilla which is then filled with peanut butter and jelly or peanut butter and Nutella. Truth be told I only came up with it when I went to pack lunches one morning and found that we were out of bread. So I tried to put an international spin on things and push the wraps. Anyway, they bought it and they love them.

So yesterday they came home from school and asked for snacks. Naturally, I made a few wraps and passed them out. About ½ an hour later Zoe appeared in the kitchen holding a half chewed and kind of drooly looking wrap. “I found this on my floor,” she said with disgust.  “I think Sugar (the miniature schnauzer) got into it”.

Then Joe walked in. He really did used to love the dog. Seriously, when we first got her he was never without her, sometimes even carrying her in the pocket of his overalls while working outside. It was adorable. But now he doesn’t like her. I’m not sure what happened – he complains that she’s too fat and she’s always lurking around the kitchen (to which I take personal offense…) – but he’s just not that fond of her.

Let me preface this event by saying that I was about ¾ of the way into a pretty elaborate dinner preparation and I was very focused. As I was stirring something and sautéing something else, Zoe entered with her proclamation of blame on the dog. Joe took the half eaten wrap and was walking towards Sugar with it in a menacing way– not unlike walking towards a dog with a rolled up newspaper but, you know,  with Nutella. He was saying “SUGAR. Bad Dog. What did you do?”

As this point she came over to me because I am her protector from all things great and small. Whether it’s a feisty chicken or a thunderstorm, she can count on me to protect her. So she was huddled behind me while I was trying to tend to the stovetop and tell Joe to leave her alone.  At that point, Max entered the room and thrust the phone into my hands.  I answered the phone and it was my mother in law asking if I’ve had a chance to check my email and show the kids a new game she had sent.

A gal can only do so much. With the phone tucked under my chin I shifted things on the stovetop and turned to Joe. “Knock it off. She gets it, ok?”  But he loves to tease her and see her get upset so he continued to harangue her. My poor mother in law had to witness the whole mess on the phone. Zoe upset over the loss of her wrap, Joe harassing the dog and me trying desperately not to burn dinner. Max was probably up to something interesting as well but I didn’t have time to check.  Sometimes I just feel like one, big, flailing mess, you know?

Too Close For Comfort

I had (yet another) unpleasant wildlife encounter last night.  I opened the door that leads into the garage to take out the recycling. As I began to step out I looked down and saw that I was about to step on a raccoon.  A big raccoon. I jumped back and slammed the door but not before I saw our cats walking around, nonchalantly, near the raccoon.  So I cautiously opened the door a tiny bit and frantically tried to call the cats to come inside the house. The cats, clearly not understanding my concern stared blankly at me and appeared to wonder what I was so freaked out about.

I got one cat inside – Bitty – who wants to be a house cat anyway so he was all over it. Tut, the other cat, seemed to be just fine where he was. I turned my attention back to the raccoon and I noticed that he really didn’t look right. He was moving slowly and his fur looked patchy and unhealthy. I opened the door again, just enough to stick my head out and there he sat just looking at me.

I said to him, “Now you get out of here and leave my cats alone. Get! Get!!”  No response. I tried again, “You  get out of here NOW!”  I shook my finger at him for good measure. At that point he actually turned back to the sour cream container and continued licking it. How very rude.

Joe was out for the evening as he is whenever I seem to have these “Why is Nature in My Living Room” moments but I knew he’d be home soon. I texted him to tell him that we had a clearly rabid raccoon in our recycling bins and that he should be careful in his dealings with it.

Silly me, I assumed he would be dealing with it.  When I heard him pull into the garage I had my eyeball right up to the peep hole in the door so that I could witness the attack should it occur. He about jumped out of his skin when he pulled the door open and I was practically attached to the handle.

“What are you doing?” he said, clearly startled.

“I’m watching for the raccoon!! See? Don’t you see its tail sticking out of that bin.” I’ll admit that my voice had a bit of an “edge” to it and might have been a few octaves too high for a normal human voice.  Joe was not nearly as concerned as I was nor as concerned as I thought he should be.

 “All right, hold on,” he said.  “I’ll go get a firecracker and scare him out.”

“A firecracker?” I asked. “It’s 11:00 at night. Don’t you think that might wake up the kids? Or scare the neighbors? Or set fire to the garage?”  Did I mention that he had been at the pub with a few friends... 

It was obvious to me at that point that I would have to come up with an alternative.  So I started barking orders at him. “You’re going to need to go in through the garage doors and sneak up on him. Take a big stick or something, I think there’s a rake on the front porch, and keep it in front of you at all times in case he lunges for you. Once you get in there you can poke him out of the bin with the rake.  Or, we could lure him out with some cat food? I’m not sure. What do you think?”

It was clear that Joe had stopped listening to me right after I said “You’re”.  He opened the door and started banging things around. The problem was this. He had the door half open with one leg in and one leg out. I had visions of a rabid raccoon rushing through the open door and careening through the kitchen and on down the hall to gnaw on the kids’ faces. 

Apparently Joe had not considered this. Seriously, do I have to think of EVERYTHING?  So while Joe was tearing things apart in the garage I went to check on the kids and I didn’t notice Max walk by and head to the garage. I heard him call me and then I noticed he was in the kitchen. Apparently “Bitty” had come into his room meowing and had woken him up and he came out to see what was going on. 

He looked into the garage to see his father dancing around and yelling obscenities at some unseen object.  Good Lord. We’ll just add that to the list of items to discuss with his therapist. I hope that therapist has lots of kids because we’ll probably be sending them all to Yale or Harvard.

  

All’s well that ends well I suppose. The raccoon was gone this morning when I left for work. At least I think he was. It was kind of hard to tell because I was running to my car really fast…