My life is a full frickin oyster

Because there just aren't enough beautiful things in my life, this weekend I discovered "dog bloat."

I assure you, it's as great as it sounds.

In case you don't know my dog, he's a slender chap with a runner's build and a diverse vocabulary of Star Wars noises. On Saturday, he returned from an unchapperoned sprint around my parents' neighborhood and looked a bit...puffy. In fact, he looked like he had swallowed a soccer ball.

At some point, I also saw him drinking 17 gallons or so of lake water, which I'm sure is awesome for him. There's a nuclear power plant a few hundred yards away from my parents' lakehouse, and I'm personally comforted that so many scientists are nearby to ensure the safety and flavor of the lake.

I spent most of that afternoon doing what any responsible pet owner would do: poking him and calling him names like "lardbucket."

But at some point, my wife decided that it might be worth looking up this little change in body type on the Internet. That's how she discovered bloat. And that's how I ended up driving to the emergency vet at midnight.

That's because she stumbled upon such calming advice as this:

If you know or even suspect your dog has bloat, immediately call your veterinarian or emergency service. Do not attempt home treatment.

Do take the time to call ahead.; while you are transporting the dog, the hospital staff can prepare for your arrival.

Pretty much every site reads like that. Apparently, dog bloat is equivalent in seriousness to a human's head exploding. No time for second guessing! Call out the medi-chopper!

So we drive Fat Jonas to the vet (who agreed that it was potentially life-threatening). There they inform us that, shockingly, Joe has gas. "I understand," I say. "Best to shoot him now then."

In all seriousness, this was an apparently lucky case of bloat. Large breeds of dogs can die within hours if their distended stomachs cause their internal organs to twist until the blood supply is cut off. So it's hard to blame Internet sites from sounding dire in their warnings that a bloated dog has the life expectancy of a Berkeley grad walking the streets of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

It's just a matter of time, the vet warns us, before Jonas' internal Hindenburg takes its fatal toll. So now we have the options of having his organs stapled to the inside of his chest (I'm probably not using the technical name for that procedure) or feeding him slower with a special bowl that rises in the middle to keep him from inhaling the food. We took the most fiscally responsible approach and turned his current bowl upside-down. Voila.

Of course, we have reason to believe that this isn't an everyday problem. Jonas promptly threw up Sunday evening, and evidence seems to suggest he ate a pile or two of catfood while he was on his lakehouse excursion. So that might explain why his only other case of bloat (which he survived in another Festivus miracle) came shortly after he ate two loaves of banana nut bread.

It's times like this I just can't wait to have a kid.