Altoids

My daughter is in a fairly defiant stage. Nearly everything is 'no' and 'mine'. Lately, things she can't have on a regular basis (such as gum, candy, shards of broken glass, etc...) have become highly prized in her mind, and she tries to get at them whenever possible. When she gets them, she hoards them like a dragon on treasure.

This morning, she found a box of Altoids in my desk. It was nearly full and as I'm not a huge fan of regular Altoids (keep me away from the cinnamon ones), I'd forgotten about this one. I walked out of my room to see her stuffing her chubby little fist into her mouth. My parent's border collie, Scout, was sitting beside her watching the proceedings with intense interest.

I saw the open, nearly empty, Altoids tin lying beside her and quickly deduced what was going on. She saw me coming and quickly deduced what was going to happen. Another fistful of Altoids went towards her mouth, and what wouldn't fit she quickly dropped on the floor by Scout.

Who, not believing his good fortune, quickly snarfed them up with his tongue.

For a moment, Scout's head cocked slightly to the side with a 'What's this???' kind of look in his eyes.

Which quickly turned into 'OHMYGODMYHEADISONFIRE!!!!!' sort of response.

Which then melted into the 'MY NOSE IS FALLING OFF!!! MY NOSE IS FALLING OFFFFF!!!' panic that really only border collies can give appropriate action to. Sneezing, frantically pawing, and then scooting around the rug on his nose were all actions that ensued.
Gwen watched, fascinated.

 I went to her, held my hand under her mouth, and told her to spit them out.

She shook her head vigorously.

I told her in a louder voice to 'SPIT THEM OUT!'

She looked at me, cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's, eyes watering and red, nose starting to run, and defiantly started swallowing them whole.

All to the chorus of our dog's non-stop sneezing in the background.

I decided not to fight it and I'm glad I didn't. Later on that day I found her (not Scout) drinking water out of the toilet and licking the seat. These are things worth fighting. Overly minty fresh breath? Not today.

And Scout still hasn't stopped sneezing.