We all have heard about parents, siblings, friends, et cetera who have to live vicariously through another person.
However, have you heard of a saying about living vicariously through your pet? Probably not.
Even though my pets have a pretty sweet life, with room and board being provided to them free of charge, I have never once wished to switch places with them.
Nor have I thought they would like to experience something that I have ever done. I eat, I play and I socialize (albeit in slightly different forms) just like they do.
That is until recently. A couple of days ago, my 10-month-old puppy Ziggy got stoned, which is something I have never done.
No, she didn’t fall in with the wrong crowd; it was more of a collateral damage sort of thing.
As I write this, I am on the third day of my two-week vacation, which I am spending in my home province of B.C. While our province might have the reputation of having marijuana around every corner, it really doesn’t.
Actually, in the last six or seven years that I have lived in Alberta, I have witnessed or smelled more pot use than I ever did while living in B.C.
However, within the first few minutes of Ziggy stepping foot in Mount Robson, B.C., she consumed what we assume was the remnants of a discarded joint.
It isn’t as funny as it might sound. After an hour or two of ingesting the marijuana, our normally alert, active puppy became lethargic, unbalanced, and started to have issues with urinary incontinence, and refusing to take food or water.
At first, we thought she was experiencing some sort of heat stroke. As we were still several hours from our destination, we did everything we could to cool her down, with no improvement.
As you can imagine, my wife and I were more than concerned, so at our next stop in a sizable town, we contacted a veterinarian and rushed her in after hours, for a considerable fee.
The local vet told us that Ziggy had in all likelihood consumed a relatively small amount of cannabis and that she would be back to herself in 12 hours.
Luckily, she was. But he said in many cases, it could be a real issue. Although marijuana itself, is not poisonous to dogs, it is still potentially dangerous because when they are high, they will not eat or drink, and depending on the amount they ingested, that could be days.
He also said it is something he is seeing more regularly, which to me is more than a bit frightening for two reasons: first, that I don’t want another pet owner to experience what I went through; and second, I’m not sure I can afford to send Ziggy to rehab.
