At 4:50 Wednesday morning, Ty and I awoke to that awful, all-too-familiar sound of wretching...dog wretching. The noise is unlike any other and can wake you from the deepest sleep. It's a horrid sound that comes across as a combo of burping, chest heaving, and choking. The victim (aside from Ty and me being woken by the incident)...Hunter. Not much of a surprise here, as Hunter is regularly regurgitating items in the middle of the night. When we wake enough to figure out what's going on, we usually attempt to move Hunter to a "safe" place to deposit his middle of the night gift to us. Safe is meant to imply somewhere NOT on our carpet. Often times it's either too late or he resists our nudging towards the linoleoum or easily washed dog bed. He has an inner voice telling him that carpet must be a better landing spot for the item he's about to puke up. So...we typically have no choice but to wait...wait and see what Hunter's throwing up for us this time. Over the years it's been a myriad of things including, but not limited to:


  • the red plastic bits from half of a chuck-it he munched down for an afternoon snack (see photo below if you aren't familiar with a chuck-it)



  • a baby rattlesnake he'd sniffed out and gobbled down on a walk (the snake was dead prior to consumption).
  • mass quantities of crunched up sticks eaten upon return from numerous camping trips (for some reason he always sets a personal goal for himself to consume every fallen stick on the forest floor).
  • and oh yeah...cat poop.

The most recent event was equally as puzzling as many of his past consumptions. At first we didn't see anything come out...just stomach bile (a glorious smell at the pre-dawn hour). But then...when we started to clean up the goopy stuff, hidden against the brown of Hunter's dog bed was a pine cone. A lone, in-tact, soggy, stinky, PINE CONE (please reference exhibit A).



First off, no...we did not save the pine cone that resurfaced from Hunter's stomach. I just happened to know exactly where he got it and was able to snag one just like it on our lunch-time walk yesterday.

Secondly, the question of the hour...how'd he do that? Swallow a WHOLE pine cone. Hunter doesn't eat anything he's not supposed to without chewing it first. The only thing he has ever swallowed without a crunch or gnash of the teeth is his food and an occassional treat. I repeat...HE ALWAYS CHEWS THINGS HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE EATING. I think it's to get the full flavor of the forbidden item.

"Must...savor...not...supposed...to eat...this... mmmmmm....," is more than likely the mantra passing through his head in the time it takes him to get the nasty thing down his throat.

But...not this time. Like a sword swallower practicing his craft, Hunter swallowed a pine cone.