Music for calming down

I don’t know about you, but “how do I make my dog throw up?” is not one of those questions I had ever been much in the habit of asking myself until this past week. On Sunday Finn ate a mushroom at the park, and today he ate what I think was probably a raisin. The remedy in both cases is “make the dog puke ASAP” and the way to do this is to mix a teaspoon or two of hydrogen peroxide with something that the unsuspecting dog will eat. Puppy hurls soon follow. Except in the case of my dog, who seems to be immune to the hydrogen peroxide trick. It gives him the heaves, but nothing comes up. Fortunately, the mushroom was harmless and the solitary raisin was below the toxicity dose (about 19g for a dog of Finn’s size) but imagine me, say, literally on fire and running in little circles and shrieking and clutching my hair and you will have a good idea of how I felt.

So now we are on the couch listening to Bach, specifically BWV 831. Finn saw that I was upset and was licking my face to comfort me, which was sweet. And he has taken to following me around – I went outside to get something from the car and when I came back up the steps I saw his little face framed in the window by the front door, waiting.

Also, I have discovered that when I play Ian Bostridge singing Bach in the car, Finn doesn’t whine. Who knew? (Clarification: that is, [Ian Bostridge singing Bach] played [in the car] not [playing a recording of] [Ian Bostridge singing Bach in the car])