Our dog was born with the jaws of a rottweiler – and the prissy gut of a pug. Throw in an astounding lack of judgment about what constitutes ‘edible’, and you have a recipe for disaster that he will make for you more than once.

This is the reason Affie is wearing the doggy cone of shame in our family picture for our February buy local campaign. Two weeks ago, he was aggressively chewing on a half-eaten dried bull penis (euphemistically called a ‘pizzle’ in the pet food industry). He was excited because Darwin was finally home and he didn’t have to listen anymore for the tread of Darwin’s foosteps, a very important job that requires constant vigilance in case an intruder tries to sneak in wearing Darwin’s shoes. The pizzle had been left untouched all day, dried out but half-gnawed away. Now, Affie grabbed the pizzle, taunting Darwin beside him on the couch. He flung his head back, chawing away at the last few inches of pizzle which now fit in his mouth. He gave it a minute or so of crushing effort and Gulp! swallowed the rest of the damn thing whole.

“There it goes,” said Darwin, who was on the couch petting Affie. This was not alarming because Affie had swallowed chunks of pizzle many times before although usually he’d soggy-ed them up more thoroughly. To be safe, we try to take away the sticks when Affie can fit them in his mouth due to his tendency to swallow the last bit whole. This was also an impressive amount to swallow at 3 inches, but we weren’t fast enough and down the hatch it went.

(Now some owners might be wondering why we let Affie chew pizzles in the first place if we had any worry he might swallow them without chewing. It’s a good question – and after this, we won’t be! But BACK THEN, before we knew what we know now, he never had a problem with them. Since they were edible, we assumed they broke down into a reasonable portion in his gut. WRONG. Also, as dog owners with fierce chewers know, NOT providing an outlet for chewing can be very frustrating for the dog. The list of ‘Not Allowed’ in our household was substantial because of Affie’s destructive jaws and included leftover steak bones, almost all plastic toys, thin raw bones, antler chews and those white, flappy rawhide bones. He was always supervised with a chew toy. Our error was not throwing the pizzle butts away which is my fault because dried bull penises are actually quite expensive per inch and I wanted Affie to get the most out of it.)

Affie is our mascot, and we need him ship-shape! He’s off on sick days for now though.

So, we weren’t worried that Affie had just gulped down the stubby end of his pizzle. The pizzles had been good treats that he enjoyed problem-free. But at the back of our mind lurked the memory of THE FIRST TIME. You see, Affie had gotten something stuck in his gut before.

Affie was a crazy puppy. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, my dog was crazy too – puppies are crazy! No. Your puppy was an angel. Our puppy was the Tasmanian devil.

It wasn’t Affie’s fault. He arrived at the Humane Society on a dark night after a long drive across the prairies, a puggle-mix (genetically tested: beagle, pug, rottweiler, husky and Heinz-57) mangy and hungry. Fearful of sarcoptic mange, which is highly contagious to humans, the 3-month old pup was put in quarantine in a crate by himself for one month. Knowing dog owners will be putting fingers to mouth here: Oh no! Oh yes. That means during critical development periods that determine his view of people, other dogs, and the world he was isolated in a box learning nothing. Not good.

Today, Affie likes his crate as a safe place from the cats!

He didn’t seem like damaged goods when Darwin asked if we wanted to adopt him. He was completely adorable with his big brown puppy eyes, floppy ears and stubby pug muzzle. He seemed to like people. Maybe he was a little weird with his giant stuffy in his crate, alternating between humping the crap out of it and suckling like a baby, but hey, don’t we all have Oedipal yearnings for our mommies sometimes? (Well, maybe just the guys.)

So we took him home. That night, it was as if Affie were a gremlin that just had a bucket of water thrown on him. He howled. He whined. He banged his crate. He crapped himself. He had what could only be described as a colossal tantrum. After hours of howling, I left the house to drink wine with a neighbour before I killed our new baby.

Affie did learn more self-control eventually. He’s now quite the self-contained man! No more getting pissed off and barking at an empty water dish! (Well, he still gets mad and barks when his ball rolls under the couch.) Affie was such a crazy chewer, mangling everything in sight including furniture and oh, you know, your hands, that he lived in a big pen in our living room for the first year of his life, coming out every few hours on-leash for walks, play time and serious amounts of training. His nicknames were Destructibles and Hyperboles, and they fit. Although we had high hopes, he turned out to be not very affable, developing a fear of men especially that requires on-going training to this day.

But back to our story. Affie used to put EVERYTHING in his mouth, making up for all that lost time in isolation. On walks, he’d grab used tissues, sticks, bottles, pine cones, leaves, plastic garbage, fast food containers and lost socks. In the house, he shredded cardboard, toys, his bedding…anything he could get his needle-sharp teeth on. One day, he was apathetic, not eating, vomiting. We took him to the vet and a scan revealed something stuck in his lower intestine. The vet thought it had moved in the hours he’d been there, so we waited a little longer, but no, a trick of the scan – it was still stuck. So, little Affie went into surgery and eventually came home with a ten inch scar on his belly and missing several inches of dead intestine from the blockage. We also got to keep as a souvenir a disc shaped piece of round, thick plastic with the word ‘Kong’ clearly visible. Since new Kong chew toys are virtually indestructible, we figure Affie must have found an old, rotted Kong somewhere and ate it.

At that time, we didn’t have insurance, choosing instead to pay out of our savings if treatment was needed. Wow, was that vet bill sticker shock! Realizing our dog was cute but stupid about his rottie-pug genetics, we decided to get insurance in case this happened again, resolving to step up our vigilance with his chewing. Our pet insurance company told us he would be covered if it happened again since this was an accident and not an illness. Years passed in safety. Until one day, Affie met a bull penis he couldn’t tame. We’re thankful we have pet insurance this time!

We learn from our pets. Our previous dog, beloved Brando, had an indestructible gut. He too was a rottie cross, but his intestines were able to process raw bone and pizzle sticks. (He also knew plastic was not edible.) Even Affie likely would have been fine with the odd few inches of pizzle if he’d never had surgery for obstruction before, but unfortunately, as we found out when he was opened up, the first surgery resulted in scrambled guts. The vet said his small intestine where the pizzle became lodged was a mass of hairpin turns and scar tissue from the first surgery. Anything hard or large could become stuck. There was no way to know this of course. Luckily, we feed Affie ground raw food so his digestion will be good going forward. But his Not Allowed list just got longer! Our lesson is not all dogs are the same, and you must adjust your treatment accordingly. Especially when your pup’s jaws are bigger than his asshole.

Affables and the Intractable Bull Penis