On distraction (or, did I accidentally take the dog’s heart medicine?)

A short interruption to regular programming.

Please enjoy this short account of human folly in which I play a starring role. We will return to regular programming next week.

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My dog takes tablets for his heart murmur. He’s an old kelpie and spends most of his time sleeping on shoes. I don’t know what it is about shoes that he finds comforting or comfortable, but if you take your shoes off, my dog would be happy to sleep on them for you.

I’m quite good at remembering to give the dog his medicine. Usually, it’s the first thing I report to my partner when he gets home from work. I say, ‘I gave the dog his tablet!’ as he walks in the door, often before he’s even said hello. Or sometimes he sticks his head around the door of my study and says, ‘Did you give the dog his tablet?’ It’s always very satisfying to answer yes. It’s my moment to shine – an opportunity to prove to my partner that I’m not as forgetful or absentminded as he claims.

This conversation is, of course, critical to us not double dosing the dog.

The dog has been on heart medicine for a couple of years now so the giving of the medicine at a certain time of day has accrued a degree of automaticity. I do it nearly without thinking. In fact, sometimes I can’t remember if I did it or not. It’s akin to that ‘did-I-lock-the-car’ feeling where the automaticity creates a blank in your mind and you have to apologise to your friends and gallop back up the street to discover that, yes, you did lock the car. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for dog medicine because when you go back to the dog asleep on a pair of shoes and pat the dog awake, the dog can’t tell you if he just took his heart medicine or not.

Yesterday, I was working at my desk and in a very absorbed frame of mind. In the midst of banging away at my computer, I remembered that I needed to give the dog his heart medicine. Distracted, I stood up and walked to the bathroom where (for reasons that are difficult to explain) we keep the dog tablets. We also keep human vitamins in there. (That will become important later.)

I entered the bathroom thinking very hard about the thing I was working on and autopilot took over: instead of getting the dog medicine I used the toilet. That’s what I usually go in there for, after all. Then I returned to my desk.

In the midst of banging away at my computer, I remembered that I needed to give the dog his heart medicine. Distracted, I stood up and walked to the bathroom and very nearly used the toilet again. Wait. Hadn’t I just been here? Hesitantly, I picked up my toothbrush. No, that wasn’t it. I began to leave. No, that’s right! The dog medicine. I popped a tablet out of the foil.

Then I returned to my desk.

In the midst of banging away at my computer, I remembered that I needed to give the dog his heart medicine. I blinked a few times at my screen. Wait, didn’t I just do that? I distinctly remembered popping a tablet from the foil. Then what? A blank. No memory of leaving the bathroom and locating the dog on whatever pair of shoes he’d installed himself on. No memory of giving him the tablet. No memory of his pink tongue darting out to gulp it down. Zero memory of any of that.

I began idly searching my desk. Had I brought the tablet there by mistake? I picked things up and put them down. No tablet.

At that moment, a horrible thought occurred to me.

I inhaled sharply and clutched my chest.

Did I accidentally take the dog’s heart medicine?

Abruptly, the broad blowsy quality of my attention zoomed into laser sharp focus. My heart began beating very fast and I felt woozy in the stomach. These are sure signs, I thought, THAT I TOOK THE DOG’S HEART MEDICINE. Trying to master my choppy breath, I returned to the bathroom to see whether returning to the scene of the error might jog my memory. Could I have, in my distraction, ingested the dog tablet thinking it was a vitamin? Had the wrong autopilot kicked in at exactly the wrong moment? My face and neck got hot and cold as I began to panic about what I’d just done to myself.

I sought out the dog, lying on a pair of Blundstone boots, and patted him awake. He lifted a sleepy head and blinked up at me. DID I GIVE YOU YOUR MEDICINE? I asked him telepathically. He licked my hand, then looked out the window and sighed very humanly.

I returned to my study, overtaken by a feeling of exhausted fatalism.

My partner returned home from work. Uncharacteristically, I did not hail him with the triumphal I-gave-the-dog-his-tablet greeting, so he sought me out at my desk. ‘Did you give the dog his tablet?’ he asked.

I looked uneasily at him. ‘I think so,’ I croaked.

My partner blinked.

He must never know, I thought. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I must protect him from knowledge of my stupidity.

‘Yeah, I did,’ I confirmed breezily.

My partner left to change his clothes and I took myself back to the bathroom. I consulted my reflection in the mirror. My face looked elderly with worry but there were no visible signs of poisoning (no unnatural flushing or blown pupils or… boils) so I returned to my study. I would probably be okay, I reasoned. After all, I’m more than twice the weight of a kelpie, so probably no harm done. It would be worse if I’d taken the dosage for an arrhythmic great dane or wolf hound or something.

I spent the next hour monitoring my vitals and wondering whether to leave a note for my partner so that he was equipped to deal with paramedics, or else tell some funny jokes at my funeral. And I tried to walk off the effects of the drug by pacing the room. There can be no starker sign, I thought, that I have a serious attention problem. I must take up meditation. I must throw out my iPhone. I must learn about local bird-life and surprise friends with my uncommonly vast knowledge of bird calls. (Butcher bird! Black cockatoo! Restless flycatcher!) I must notice when plants are fruiting or flowering and be able to remark that ‘the jacksonia is early this year.’ I must tune in to my surroundings and foster mindfulness. What phase of the moon was it at the moment, for example? I had no idea. Still pacing, I began googling moon charts only to walk into the heater and knock it over in dramatic, clashing fashion.

Two hours later, it seemed safe to assume that I hadn’t taken the dog’s heart medicine after all. I must’ve given it to the dog. It was just so automatic that I’d blanked it out.

The dog entered my study and presented himself for a pat. He seemed to recognise, with that uncanny canine intuition, that I’d had a tough, few hours. YOU’LL BE OKAY, he told me telepathically, parked next to my desk chair like a sage dog table. After submitting to some vigorous kneading and neck-scrunching, he sighed in his strange human way and dolefully sidled out.

I have since instituted a new policy of announcing out loud when I am administering tablets to the dog. ‘I am giving you your medicine,’ I tell the dog. ‘You have taken your medicine,’ I tell the dog. (The dog receives these announcements with appropriate gravitas.) ‘The moon is waxing gibbous,’ I tell the dog.