Eye spy something....missing!

Hello!  Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Brutus and I were busy, and we had an... umm... interesting weekend.  Allow me to explain.

As you might remember, we participated in our first APDT (Assoc. of Pet Dog Trainers) rally trial.  Similar to what we did last month with AKC, slightly different rules & a little more of a relaxed venue.  I thought it would be a cakewalk, and a good warm-up for our big show later this week.  Boy, was I wrong....

The exercises were actually harder than what we thought (although certainly not beyond what we can do), so that was one surprise.  The other was that I had a completely different bulldog with me - crazy & reactive.   Of course I was embarrassed, but moreover confused as to why Brutus was so stressed and obviously miserable.  I wondered if maybe he was not feeling well or something (he threw up a little the night before), because I hadn't seen this bad of behavior out of him EVER!  Had I done too much recently?  Is this a new adolescent growing pain, or the start of something even worse???

Thankfully Brutus did pull himself together somewhat and had two decent tests, both of which had good enough scores to Qualify and win our novice dog/novice handler division.

It might be a while before I know the answer to some of those other questions, but the reason behind at least part of the behavior did become apparent; Brutus wasn't feeling well.  I suspect he had quite the bellyache.  Wanna know why????

On Friday I noticed that one of our long-time favorite stuffies, the alien frog, had become a cyclops.  I didn't remember him missing an eye, but it had been a while since I'd seen him.  I looked around for the eye a little, and it crossed my mind that it could be somewhere I wouldn't see it - Brutus' stomach.  As our devoted followers may know, Brutus has a history of ingesting inappropriate things, including a pair of my underwear.  His default maneuver when he doesn't know what else to do with something is to eat it.  And Brutus had thrown up a little Friday night, but had otherwise been acting normal.  Hmmmm.......

And so the truth came out, so to speak, last night.  After a day of unusually nasty gassiness, Brutus woke us up in the middle of the night with some projectile vomiting, the contents of which included the froggy eye in question.  Good thing his digestive tract has a good "reverse" gear, or that's two expensive/risky surgeries Brutus would have now required for foreign object removal!  I guess it's mostly good news; no more wondering where the eye went, no impaction, only some minor laundry to do, and a possible explanation of why Brutus was so awful at the trial.  Certainly conceivable that he just didn't feel good, and didn't know how else to let me know he didn't appreciate being at a dog show??

Anyways, here's the aftermath of what will henceforth be referred to as the "eye incident"

 The other eye??  I don't have the faintest eye-dea what you are talking about, mom.

   Oh, look at that, froggy IS missing an eye....  

How on earth did that happen???

How could you accuse me of such a thing??  

I'll put on my best innocent face for you, mom.... 

It was Mason, I swear.....

Ok, ok.  I guess you have all the evidence you need to convict me.  

Sorry, Froggy.

What can I say?  EYE gotta be me!!