The other night I was eating a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie and a piece fell on the floor. Kody got to it before I could, but then I thought I had heard that macadamia nuts are poisonous to dogs.
I looked it up and sure enough they are. You always find the most terrifying stories first when you look up stuff like that. I had the hardest time finding out how much macadamia nut it would take to really have an effect. It turns out it’s as little as 2.4g of macadamia nuts per kilogram of bodyweight. So I’m trying to find out how much a macadamia nut weighs and I end up doing some complex googling and end up with about 2.825g per nut. I estimate he ate about a half a macadamia nut at most. So we’re very much in the clear.
However, it has been a tough year since I got Kody. First he got bit on the nose by a spider or something. His nose swelled up and he had to spend a few hours at the vet.
Then he got stung by a bee which paralysed him for about 5 minutes. We had a bees nest right near our door and I had to take him outside in a carrier for a couple of days until they could come take care of it. I got stung twice myself.
Then he fell off the couch onto his back. He wasn’t moving much. We took another trip to the vet and he took a day to fully recover from that.
Then we got fleas, this was my first time with fleas and I totally freaked out. Again more internet, more learning, more sifting though information some of which is very scary. Turns out Advantage will do most of the work, but it was a tough time getting to that point. And when there are fleas outside you will still see some occasionally even though the Advantage is working. It makes your heart jump when you see them again.
And then there was this macadamia nut thing. While brief, each of these things takes an emotional toll while you’re still figuring out how to deal with them. Owning a dog is really a lot of work. I don’t have kids, but I always say Kody has brought out all of my parenting instincts. When you are responsible for a dog, and that dog is in danger, you very much have an emotional response. Those times can be tough.