Because I Like To Share Exciting News

Taffy doesn't really seem to know she's a dog. Playing with Frisbees, or "fetch" is completely beneath her. She thinks sleeping all day is an admirable career choice. She's not eating food off the floor unless maybe it's hot dog. And licking humans to show affection? You can almost see her shudder delicately at the thought. In fact I've always said she's really more cat than dog. Considering her questionable lineage it's not completely out of the question that somewhere one of her ancestors did do the Wild Thing with a cat.
But she has one very annoying, very expensive, very dog-like behavior.

She suffers from something called Pica. This is just a fancy way to say Taffy likes to eat clothing. Specifically my clothing. Even more specifically, my underwear.

She's very discriminating when it comes to this behavior. The granny panties I buy from Wal-Mart in a package of 6 for $5.00? No, no, no, she would far prefer to eat the expensive ones that come from Victoria's Secret or Macy's if given a choice. Don't get me wrong, she will eat the El-Cheapos, but it's sort of like if you or I were given a choice of eating at McDonald's or The Four Seasons. She will eat the Hanes, but she will actually go digging through a closed laundry hamper for $15 panties.

Of which I no longer own any because I got tired of feeding them to the dog. And we like to pay the bills and buy groceries at least some of the time around here.

Every vet I've asked tells me this behavior is in response to some sort of anxiety or boredom. While it is true she only does it when she's alone - I've never once caught her in the act - I can't understand where boredom or anxiety would come into the picture. When you are waited on hand and foot, given everything you could possibly want, and rarely left alone, where exactly does boredom and/or anxiety occur? She sneaks into the basement to do it when nobody's watching.

It might be cheaper to buy her some Prozac.

Unfortunately for her, since she is not in fact a goat, this behavior is actually dangerous to her health. Most of the time she simply passes the cloth, as evidenced by the cheerful multi-colored piles in the yard (Yay! Decorative poop. Martha Stewart eat your heart out.). But on Thursday, since I've been more conscientious about keeping underwear out of her reach, she accepted a substitute and instead ate a dish towel.

Since we can neither afford to feed her underwear, nor pay $2,000 to have cloth removed from her intestinal tract, we have been worriedly watching her try to make something come out of her rear since then, to no avail.

This morning Dave called me to tell me he found a pile of poo on the living room carpet. Did you ever imagine this could be good news?

Me either.