Midnight adventure with puppy

Many years ago I got a second Miniature Dachshund.  She was so tiny! I think she weighed 3lbs. when we got her.  Whenever I had to leave the house I would put in her crate in the middle of the kitchen floor.  She HATED that, but she was safe and warm there.  She barked ceaselessly at first, because she did not want to be confined at all. 

I worked second shift, or 3:00pm until 11:00pm, arriving home from work at around 11:15pm on week nights.  One very cold winter night I arrived home to find this tiny dog with a swollen head.  It was kind of funny looking, like a tiny St. Bernard head on a wee, little body.  I was terrified! What on earth had happened to her?

I called the veterinarian’s emergency number…. at 11:30pm.  The vet said it was probably a bug bite, because what else could it be?  And I was instructed to give the pup half of a baby aspirin for the swelling.  Well, I had lived with dogs for more than 15 years, and we never had baby aspirin in the house—who thinks of such things! It never occurred to me to have baby aspirin on hand.

So, it’s midnight, I live in a rural area,… and I need baby aspirin.  I am not that person who wakes up the neighbors for such things…. I mean the dog was acting totally normal, so why panic completely……  there happened to be a 24 hour grocery store in town, about 8 miles away. 

Off we went in the middle of the night, the puppy and I  –because I was not going to leave her home alone, just in case she had more of a reaction to whatever bit her.  It was COLD, and by the time we got to the grocery store her swollen head was much better….more normal looking.  But now I had a dilemma,… I did not want to leave her in the car, alone, in the freezing cold night.  But I did have a purse that zipped shut… so I emptied it and put the puppy inside.  Zipping the sack-like bag shut was fun –the puppy did not want to be closed inside, so she kept popping her head out of the opening.  That made me laugh, so she thought it was a game… anyway, I finally got her zipped inside the bag.

Into the store we went.  More than likely I could have simply put the pup in the cart and no one would have cared, but I did not want to get in trouble. No one paid any attention to me as I hurried to the pharmacy area to find the baby aspirin.  In fact, no one noticed me at all….until I got to the check out line.  There was one person ahead of me, I waited, then put the purse containing the pup on the belt with the aspirin, and took out my money.  Naturally the pup was squirming around, trying to escape from the bag… the cashier did notice, but she quickly looked away, shaking her head like she was thinking, “wow I AM tired, I thought that purse moved.”  Pretty funny, yes, but I did not reveal the pup to the cashier.  In retrospect I probably should have let that poor girl know that she did, in fact, see the purse move.  (But then it would not be as funny later! Right?)

In the end the puppy was fine, and I never did find out what bit her.….