The rusk of raisin’ a modern dog

I was striving to be responsible. It was Sunday night, and I had sensibly gone to bed at a reasonable hour. All was peaceful until 23:00, when my daughter burst into our room. “Penny ate a rusk. With raisins!”

Half-asleep, I wasn’t sure whether this was a milestone to celebrate or a cause for concern. It turned out to be the latter. Apparently, raisins – not rusks – are toxic for dogs. And despite Penny’s belief that she wasn’t part of the canine species, she was very much a poodle.

A quick recap: we don’t harbour many family secrets, but one pact my wife and I have upheld is never disclosing to our kids – or anyone – what we paid for the raisin eater. It’s the one thing we’ve agreed to take to our graves. My late grandmother was buried with her apple strudel recipe; others take secrets of hidden love children, long-lost family, or a pirate past. Ours is the price we paid for Penny.

For her to be felled by an Ouma rusk.

Now fully awake, while my wife and daughter furiously Googled and called poison centres and 24-hour vets in Fourways, I had time to reflect on how things have changed. I recalled growing up when my parents always seemed to have a pack of dogs.

With names like Havoc, Vortex, MacTavish, Stoffel, and Julio (pronounced Chulio), they were a law unto themselves. They ate whatever my mother gave them because, back then, dogs could eat human food. They lived outside, and successfully hunted the neighbours’ cats whenever the felines were foolish enough to enter our garden. After realising that honesty might have been the best policy but also the most expensive one, my parents eventually stopped admitting guilt when the distraught couple came looking for their missing cats. Nope, we hadn’t seen or heard a thing. I suspect that one day, when they excavate homes in Observatory, they’ll wonder if there was a cat epidemic in the region.

The cats weren’t the only ones at risk. With gates that didn’t lock, many a rabbinic collector from Israel fell prey to the pack. On more than one occasion, I recall my parents taking the bewildered clergy to then Johannesburg General Hospital for stitches that night, and then to Monatic for a new pair of trousers the next day. I assume the cheque they left with made the sacrifice worth it, but that’s speculation.

How is it, I wondered, that back then, dogs could do anything without fear of death? How did we arrive at a point where Gatsby needs his nose lathered with SPF 50 sunscreen for sensitive skin, or where we have to supply the shampoo to the parlour because he’s allergic to the one they use? I can’t imagine my parents debating the colour of the bandana that Pimp My Pup will drape dramatically around Penny and Gatsby’s necks.

And I wonder what Stoffel and the pack would have said if they confronted a Swiss Shepherd in a bandana. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

All this is why I decided that if Penny had indeed eaten a raisin and had a reaction to it, we would deal with it then. No-one goes to Fourways at this time of night unless it’s to pop by the casino. And I wasn’t feeling lucky.

So, I suggested that if they were still concerned, they might consider starting a tehillim group and let me know in the morning how it all turned out.