January 26, 2011

be careful

One thing I love about Facebook is how you can 'Like' groups you enjoy. In my case, I am a fan of a lot of parenting and DIY type pages. Every day when I open my laptop and browse the newest news, I am flooded with lots of inspirations and fun tips/ideas. Which I love. However, a running theme for parenting sites is homemade playdough recipes and about once a month, I stare at the newest and greatest recipe shared for thousands. Sadly, seeing these (and everyone going gaa gaa over them) makes me cringe. I could be totally off base here, but since having kids, it's always felt like, for some reason, homemade playdough is like a badge of "Good Momminess". Somehow by doing this activity with or for our children, especially more than once, we are thrust into the realm of greatness in the parenting world.

I drank the Kool-aid once or twice way back when. I would seek out the ingredients from my pantry and toss the gooey mess into some concoction of dough for my kids. And, I admit it, I felt like I had done something right in the Mommiverse while I gave myself silent kudos.

The reason I write this post this morning is because, not unlike any other day, when I opened my Facebook account and stared at my Home page. Right up at the top was a pretty popular parenting site post about, you guess it, a homemade playdough recipe. Normally, I'm able to just to ignore these posts, but this morning I felt compelled to introduce you all (who might not know) our first Scottish Terrier, Angus.


Oh how we adored this pup. He was a great dog! Smart, easy to train, a big baby, handsome and he loved us. And, well, look at him. How can you not fall for this dog. He was 27 pounds of Scottish goodness. Sadly, the time we got to enjoy his company was short lived.


What in the world does homemade playdough and Angus have to do with each other you might be wondering right about now.

Well, one rainy afternoon, when Angus was 18 months old, I decided we would burn some daylight by whipping out a batch homemade playdough to play with. There was a break in the rain and the dogs (we also had a long time family dog as well) were outside. The kids and I made playdough. I set the three of them up at the table in the kitchen. Then, it started to rain again. Before letting the dogs back into the house, I said to the kids, "don't drop your playdough on the floor, we don't want to the dogs to eat it."



Oh how I wish I could take that moment back.

As soon as I let the dogs in, a glob of playdough hit the floor and in an instance, Angus gobbled it up before I could stop him.

The result of ingesting the salty dough was almost instant. He started to vomit and I knew something wasn't right. At the time, I had no idea about sodium toxicity. I assumed dogs eating homemade playdough wouldn't be good, but I never thought it would reek havoc like it did.



After a stressful 24 hours, I drug myself back to the place Angus spent the night and decided to make the painful, heartbreaking decision.





So today, I'm here to say, "Please be careful." I will never make homemade playdough (or own playdough) in my house again. But, that doesn't mean you can't. I'm not condemning your decision to whip out the salt and flour either. I just want you all to be aware, especially if share your home with pets.

Check out this list for other items that are harmful.

1 comment:

~ Regan said...

OH, how sad! :( So sorry you had to grow through this.
Its good to know, too, because I have a beloved dog (who seems to have a taste for playdough as well- only its store bought) so I will not be trying to make my own. And, I will pen him up when teh kiddo plays with it. THanks so muchfor the warning, I had NO idea.