.

On that hot evening as I was rushing them to get home, Hollywood decided she wanted to pick up something that was on the ground.  I bent down to remove it from her mouth, not knowing what it was.  Apparently, Hollywood disagreed with that idea and decided to down the object whole.  That night we went to bed and woke up in the morning.  It was strange, as I had never slept all the way through the night before since bringing Hollywood home.  You see, she's a frequent pooper.  It doesn't matter what time I feed her she insists that she needs to go every night at 4 in the morning.  So I had slept the whole night.  The next day she still didn't go to the washroom.  She was sluggish and really not herself.  When I picked her up she was very uncomfortable.  I called the vet because I was concerned about her.  So ten minutes later I was bringing her to the vet.  They did the first set of x-rays and the results were inconclusive.  They could see the stomach was blocked, but couldn't make out what the shadow was.  So they gave her this white chalk stuff that goes through the system and glows white in the x-rays.  An hour later they do another x-ray.  There, very clearly, the x-ray showed there was an entire pine cone filling her stomach and was disabling her from going to the washroom. 

It was too late to operate that night so the vet said lets give it one more night to see if it will break down and pass naturally.  I woke up in the morning and no-go.  Off to the vet again.  The surgery was almost $1300 and the x-rays and other treatments were over $300 the night before.  The next day I signed both my dogs up for pet insurance.  She is now forbidden to touch pine cones when we go for walks.

As a side note: Hollywood is very much my dog.  I had left at my sister's- to re-coop from the surgery, not wanting her to be by herself.  Hollywood was very sad that I was leaving her and tried to follow me.  Problem...the baby gate was closed and she couldn't fit.  It took 1.5 hours, vegetable oil, margarine, dish soap, and a whole lot of maneuvering to wedge her out from the baby gate.  I seriously contemplated calling the fire department for help.