Bad Dog!

We interrupt the Cavalcade of Xmas FO's to bring you a special breaking news quiz -- the tail tale of the bad dog. Which of these is the culprit?


Ginger,

OR


Muffy?

THE SUSPECTS:

Muffy (known aliases -- Mufferoo, Muff and "Spike") is my cousin's dog, and he is visiting with us while my cousin visits Antarctica. Again. Is my cousin a life-long adventure-seeker? No, although she has traveled the world quite extensively. But she is not a very outdoorsy type. Something about seeing the penguins in Antarctica really appealed to her when she went last year, so this year it's off to Antarctica again. I think that they stay on a cruise ship and are provided with all the thermal underwear and insulated outerwear that they want. Muffy is a mixed breed dog of unknown provenance, no doubt from a broken home.

Ginger (known aliases -- Dogbert, Queen Amidaga) is our dog and has been with us about three years. Ginger appears to be a Brittany with no other breeds mixed in, and was found living on the streets and then rescued from the shelter.

THE CRIME:

A citizen inadvertently left a bag about 1/4 full of dark chocolate chips where our culprits had access to it, and then left the residence. Another citizen (your intrepid reporter) discovered the crime when Ginger rustled the bag, attempting futilely to extract the last few chips. Yes, almost all of the chips had been eaten. But -- by whom? We had our suspicions, but we needed:

CSI:

Evidence: one (1) nearly empty bag of Nestle "premium" dark chocolate chips, and two dogs with guilty expressions (see above).

We got the emergency vets on the case to, er, extract further evidence. Yes, they injected the dogs with an emetic and made the dogs vomit. I'm so glad that's not my job. Even on my worst days on the job, I don't have to deal with dog puke.

CONCLUSION:

Laboratory analysis of the puke evidence revealed that -- Ginger was our culprit. This is consistent with her previous MO. The first week we had her she jumped on the dining table and was standing there, all four paws on the table, eating Hershey's kisses. Wouldn't you think we'd have learned to keep chocolate completely out of her reach? You would be justified in thinking that, but you would be wrong. $244 wrong, to be precise.