Yes, Virginia, Ben ate the gingerbread house. No, Virginia, the gingerbread house did not agree with his tummy.
Last year we put the gingerbread house on a waist-high bookshelf in our sunroom, this year it was in the dining room window. But we put up our tree the other day, and had to move end tables and lamps, and something ended up right in front of the window, blocking the house.
What did I do? I moved the house to an end table that was now in the dining room. This end table is kitchen table height, every inch as high as the shelf we used for the gingerbread house last year. But when I was moving it, Ben happened to be in the room, and a piece of candy happened to get knocked off while I was transitioning it. Ben helpfully cleaned it up.
My lab may be dumb, but he knows what food is. And he figured out that that gingerbread house was food. Thankfully it didn’t have very much chocolate on it.
Fast forward several hours: throw-up on floor greeted us as we returned from our morning excursion. Honestly, this didn’t even raise a suspicion because Ben eats so many socks and other things so that he is always throwing up (I had just cleaned up a regurgitated sock that morning). But he kept drinking water so I did look around to make sure all our playdoh was accounted for (it was). Playdoh also does bad things to dogs’ tummies.
I figured it out after I put Tucker down for his rest time. I was going down the front stairs and saw the destruction. Actually, there was one very unique thing about this indiscretion of Ben’s: he wasn’t able to finish the whole house. In fact, he only got about halfway through--he ate two sides and a roof more or less—this is the first time he’s ever not successfully finished an item of food (that I know of).
Oh, and one more thing: Tucker still hasn’t figured it out so shhhhhh!!!
