The dog ate my...

menstrual cup (that expensive infinitely re-usable rubber thingee)

Before I had them, I'd heard tell of blood-loving dogs...Tampon-eaters, chewers and cuddlers of bloodied underwear. I would shiver with disgust, much like you're doing now.

Oryx is a blood-lover. She loves blood in all forms - tampons, bloodied clothes. Sometimes, if you're not paying attention, she'll get a few licks in at a scrape or cut. She's even been known to sniff deeply and happily at a bruise...through fabric. If we die in the house, or even sleep in too late, I assume Oryx will begin to eat us.

How do you train a dog not to love blood? Believe me, we've tried on the garbage thing, but she's smart and willful enough to learn exactly what she wants to (how to step on the bathroom garbage lever to open the lid), and nothing that she doesn't.


Alexis came to me the other evening with her hand held behind her back. "Your dog has eaten thirty dollars worth of something," (Crisfield is her dog - I get the weaselly, gassy, blood-sucker) and revealed a scant pile of torn calico (it had had a storage bag) and just a little bit of chewed rubber, that had been retrieved from Oryx's kennel. Alexis held her hand down at dog-head level and said "What is this?!" In response, Oryx gently took the shredded fabric and tip-toed back to her bed.

It can't be healthy for a dog to eat that much rubber.