Growl

I think I might have mentioned that Oscar is a quiet dog. I have only heard him bark in my house twice. The first time was when he was still kind of new here and he caught the distorted reflection of himself in the glass front of the woodstove. His bark ricocheted off said glass front, echoing into his face and startling him so much that he never tried it again. The second time I heard him bark here was a few weeks ago when the Other Jenn came over for dinner and let herself in. We were both startled and impressed.

But usually, he just doesn't say much. He might whine a little, but that's about it. His tummy, on the other hand? Well, let's just say that if he doesn't eat his evening meal, I am bound to wake up once or twice in the middle of the night, because his stomach has a voice of its own. The first time this happened, I thought I was having some kind of supernatural, audibly-manifested, spiritual attack, the sounds were so weird. (I've never had one of those--nor do I want one--but these were my immediate thoughts upon waking up from a sound sleep at 3 a.m. with the bizarre utterances his stomach was making.)

Last night, Oscar for some reason declined his dinner again, though he had ample opportunity to eat it (we went to my friend Mom-Elizabeth's for dinner, but I actually remembered to bring his food along), but at least this time I had a fairly good idea what was coming. The sounds don't get any less weird, and when you have dreams like I have, the noises still sound like someone or something is trying to say something when you wake up to them, but at least I was a little quicker on the uptake this time.

I figured Oscar would run to his bowl first thing after our Walk this morning, but he didn't. He didn't drink any water, either. He's spent the entire morning so far either hiding under my bed, or snoring on the floor next to the couch. And while he always sleeps a lot, there's something about the quality of this sleep and the fact that he's missed two meals that is making me wonder if there's something a little more wrong with him than just funny tummy-noises. I'm hoping he'll recover and we won't need to visit the vet, come Monday. But mostly I just hope he'll recover. I'd rather he barked than starved.