Daisy Kakes

Nobody takes a cake as wastefully as a Daisy Kake!  Years ago, while visiting my father in Pennsylvania, his bachelor pad kitchen had very limited food selection.  He had his obligatory bag of soft pretzels for my sustenance, but Sai wanted something else.  The box of butterscotch Krimpets called to her, and whether it was her sweet tooth or the lack of other options, I cannot say, but she expressed enjoyment at the ingestion of processed sugars.  The old man took the cue and has since always brought us boxes of Tastykakes along with the aforementioned Philly Soft Pretzels whenever our paths crossed. 

A week ago, due to differing schedules and grandpop’s refusal to spend his Jewish Christmas with his agnostic grandchildren, we exchanged gifts via proxy.  The youngest sister made the back and forth trip north, delivering the goods and bringing back the boxes of cupcakes for Sai.  She left the bag of boxes near the front door, since we had not opted for the white glove service.

The next morning, Sai and I headed in different directions, she to take Catherine to a friend’s birthday party, while Teddy and I headed to his swim lesson.  The house was left in the seemingly safe paws of our dog Daisy.  Alas, when the boys returned, we found an empty box of buttercreme iced cupcakes.  The family pack, six packs of two.  Chocolate cupcakes, buttercreme icing, with crème filling.  I’m guessing that they don’t have any actual dairy in their “crème”, which is why it’s spelled like the French dessert (less the accent), just like the junk (delicious) filling in Oreos. 

Now if the chewed open box said chokolat, I’d rest assured that Daisy ate some hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup only, and not the dog-deadly cocoa product.  But they spelled chocolate correctly, so I could only assume that the damn dog takes after my darling wife and is equally unwilling to share the family-sized box of cupcakes with the rest of us.  And that Daisy would die sooner than expected.  Sai is vengeful when you touch her food.

Chocolate can cause seizures and heart failure if in large enough portions and you’re a wimpy dog.  Are twelve cupcakes considered a large portion?  Within the first hour, it is recommended to make the dog vomit, before the canine can fully absorb the toxic treat into the bloodstream.  At least that’s what I gathered from the internet.  I couldn’t get through to the animal poison control hotline.  It’s a $95 service if they ever take you off hold.  Apparently Sunday afternoons are popular times for doggies dying of cupcakes.  But not on my watch! 

My vet-tech sister suggested the old peroxide trick, consistent with the internet advice, or she said we could just let Daisy ride out the forthcoming diarrhea, racing heart, and possible death as a lesson not to steal Sai’s cupcakes.  Since I do (more than) my share of picking up her poop, and I didn’t want to have to dig a big hole in the frozen ground to bury her, I ignored the punitive plan and grabbed the 3% peroxide, just waiting for its moment.

When Sai is out (partying with three year olds), I can barely find the kitchen (because I’m so lost without her), and I unsurprisingly couldn’t find a medicine dispenser with which to measure out the appropriate portion of peroxide.  So I improvised!

Sai returned home, no doubt jacked up on party cake, to find me holding Daisy’s mouth open (gripping between her teeth) while Teddy squirted copious amounts of first aid antiseptic into her maw.  Instead of applauding my ingenuity and our father-son teamwork, the wife berated me and said I was killing the very animal I was so clearly saving.  There’s a reason they don’t let hysterical family members into the operating theatre.  They just can’t handle it. 

Ten minutes later, Daisy did her part by puking up a mouthful of foamy bubbles, behind which was a soupy chocolate mess. 

The Google and the mean vet-tech sister both told me that the veterinarians would only treat the symptoms of discomfort following this process (treating the dog for dehydration), and that the bitch would ride it out the same at home anyway.  “If she dies, she dies…” in the cold-hearted voice of Drago. 

But Daisy did not show any signs of discomfort beyond being made to throw up on command.  No diarrhea, no further vomiting, no tremors, seizures, noticeable heart palpitations, or anything else to indicate that she’d eaten a bunch of poisonous Tastykakes. 

A few hours later, I found an unopened pack of cupcakes in the office…

Later still, another pack was discovered in the corner of the living room…

And that evening, a third pack was retrieved after being unsuccessfully hidden in our bedroom.

Daisy is not an out-of-control pig of a dog.  She is a sneaky animal, delaying instant gratification for a prolonged exposure to sugary goodness over time.  I was so proud!  Sure, she ate three packs of two cupcakes for a morning meal of six chocolate killers, but she stopped short of eating them all.  Like a good dog should. 

It’s a common sight for Daisy to sit and stare while we eat non-dog food at the dining room table.  She’ll ignore her bowl of kibble to not-so-subtly tell us that it’s not fair.  But when Daisy saw Sai open her own pack of cupcakes, and proceed to eat them, without even so much as acknowledging that Daisy had been saving them for herself, she stared doggie daggers.  A female dog is sometimes called a bitch.  But in this instance, the female dog was calling her mommy the b-word.