so, mauja hasn't been eating for a week. or rather, when he has eaten, he's puked it all back up. while this might sound immediately alarming, we've learned in the past that he has a finicky stomach and occasionally can go a few days without eating, although this has never gone on for a week. we usually sit and wait it out, feed him a "bland" diet of boiled beef and rice and carefully observe him for any of the serious danger signs, such as instantaneous puking and lethargy. immediately puking after eating likely means that he doesn't have a mere upset stomach, but rather something is obstructing his digestive tract.

today, i fed mauja ayet another savory meal of boiled beef and rice, and he immediately lets me know he needs outside - now - and promtply pukes. and this is no casual puke - it was, um, strained. bad. very bad. the last time this happened we unloading our bank account for emergency stomach surgery. on that particular occasion the vet pulled an intact, large play toy "squeak" from his stomach, which was just moments away from making its way into mauja's intestines, which is deadly.

i immediately call the vet and make the dreaded "emergency" appointment for tommorrow morning and am told to "watch him carefully". i then go outside and slowly approach the steaming mass of beef, bile and rice mush and find that neatly, almost elegantly, on top of the mess there is a frightenly large piece of brown glass. it's roughly the size of the cross section of a large avocado. luckily, it's slightly smoothed around the edges as if it's been sitting in the back yard for a half a century.

based on the size, i can immediately deduce how it ended up in his stomach. it's the perfect size for playing "keep away" from cadence. the dogs will play "keep away" for hours and hours and i guess glass is as good as anything else. a slip and a tumble and down the gullet goes the glass. even smoothed, i'll can't imagine how on earth the glass didn't rip his esophogous to shreds on the way down or up.

mauja has immediately perked-up and has downed more beef and rice without puking, so i'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be paying the vet a boatload of money tommorrow, just to have her tell us that he'll be o.k.

sigh.