Guinness the chocolate monster.

I'm dogsitting for two beasts. One is clever, and one is good. The good one is George -- just about the happiest creature in the world. He's always glad to see you, takes his medicine without protest, fetches balls and newspapers, and never gets into mischief. He's sort of psycho, in that he won't go near a floor grate or up the stairs, but he's sweet. The other pup, Guinness, is less good. He'll go anywhere, and with a plot to overtake. Really, he's a philosopher with an attitude problem. He is devious.

One time when Guinness was younger, he was sent to his crate because he was being annoying. A few minutes later, I heard a the sound of a bag being opened following by crunching. Apparently, he had hidden a bag of Ruffles under a blanket in his crate, lest he should be hungry during a future isolation period. You see? A thinker.

Guinness has a flare for the dramatic, and when he doesn't get his way, he shows suicidal tendencies, in that he thinks it's a really good idea to eat all kinds of things he shouldn't. For example, last Saturday, I wouldn't allow him to sleep in my bed. So he went downstairs and ate 30 ounces of chocolate from our secret chocolate stash that apparently I hid so well from myself that I forget to put it on top of the refrigerator. (Guinness, being part Great Dane, can reach just about anything if he puts his mind to it.) It was truffles, candy bars, a chocolate frog from Harry Potter Land, some chocolate covered fruits, fancy champagne gels covered in chocolate -- all sorts of hedonistic delights.

My parents are probably flipping out while they read this, but Mom, Guinness is fine, I swear. I wasn't sure for a while. But I chased him around the house with a turkey baster full of hydrogen peroxide and forced him to puke several times. We followed up with some activated charcoal (yay, for emergency vet suggestions!). The piles of dog vomit were much more pleasant to clean up than you'd think because it just smelled like melted chocolate.

Really, it's George's fault. If he wasn't such a good dog, then there wouldn't have been such a fuss because they would have shared the chocolate. But George wouldn't dream of eating someone else's chocolate stash, and Guinness wouldn't dream of sharing his booty. So rather than eating half the stash, which wouldn't have been such a big deal (they each weigh about 150 pounds, after all), Guinness ate it all by himself and made himself sick sick sick.

Enough time has passed now though that it's kind of funny. Now I'm just annoyed that there's no chocolate in the house.

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