By late afternoon, I was beginning to worry that we were going to end up in the emergency room.  You see, when he was a kid, the doctor made sure I kept a supply of Phenergan, an anti-nausea medication that comes in the form of suppositories, in my refrigerator because of previous trips to the ER for dehydration following some nasty stomach bugs.   When I mentioned Phenergan, my son, who was lying on his bed and almost unable to move, vigorously shook his head and said, “I can make it.”

It was three days before he was able to eat solid food, and he was as weak as Newt’s chances of being President.  However, he was right.  He made it.  But he scared his mother half to death.

Three days later, Pancho, our three-legged Australian Shepherd, scared me worse.  I woke up and went to let my dogs out to find that he had apparently caught a similar stomach bug.  My garage looked like he’d consumed a gallon of Colonblow.   The frightening thing, though, was that he couldn’t walk.  He was so pitiful as he tried to pull himself toward me with his two front legs that I almost burst into tears.  I picked up that 65-pound dog, put him into the backseat of my car, and sped to the veterinarian’s.

They checked him out completely and decided that he was simply weak from being sick.  I carried him back to the car, took him home, and he slept on his beanbag chair in the house the whole day.  Thankfully, by the next morning, he was back to normal.

There has been some debate in my family over the past few months about which of my dogs is the smartest.  Certain family members like to joke that my dachshunds are dumb because their brains are only the size of a walnut.  But after what happened this week, I’ve decided that they’re wrong.  And I can prove it.

When my son was sick, several different people said to me, “You’d better watch out because that stuff is going around. You’re next.”  My reply was that I wasn’t worried because I never get stomach bugs.  The reason, I believe, is that I take massive doses of probiotics.  I take a brand called Primal Defense, which is comprised of Homeostatic Soil Organisms (HSOs).  In researching the product, I found this quote by a Dr. Goldberg:  “It has been suggested that bacteria found in the soil referred to as Homeostatic Soil Organisms (HSOs), when ingested orally in a probiotic formulation, may have advantages over non-HSO probiotic formulas, due to their ability to implant and survive in the gut. The value of HSOs reportedly lies in promoting positive intestinal function, with corresponding systemic improvements in the patient’s overall nutritional, immunological and gastrointestinal status.”

Now, I’m not promoting Primal Defense.  I’m just saying that I think the reason I never get sick is that I take probiotics, and this is the brand I use.

But why is that important?  And what does it have to do with my dachshunds?

While all of this sickness was happening inside my house, several men were working outside my house to install the landscaping around my new pool.  Off to one side, I had them prepare a small area for a vegetable garden.  They mixed into the soil a large amount of cow manure.   I walked outside one afternoon after the men had left for the day to find my dachshunds eating that dirt.

I realize this is highly speculative and based completely on circumstantial evidence.  But my dachshunds eat from the same food bowl that Pancho does, and none of them became ill.  I’m going out on a limb, I realize, but I think it might be because of the HSOs in that dirt.  That or they don’t drink out of my son’s toilet like Pancho does.

Either way, in my book, it makes the dachshunds smarter.  And if that’s not enough proof, I got confirmation from a second source.

I was out walking Shirley the other day, and we happened past a group of six neighborhood kids engaged in a game of touch football.  There were five boys and one girl, who was wearing a dress and fancy tights.  She was playing center — bending over and hiking that ball — in a dress.  I was immediately impressed.  When she saw Shirley, she squealed, “Dachshund!” and left the game to run over and pet my dog.  She sat down on the curb and circled Shirley’s head with her fingers.  She held up that circle of fingers to me and said, “Her head is this big.”  Then, closing the circle a bit, to just about the size of a walnut, she continued, “Which means her brain is this big.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” I said, laughing.

She looked me in the eye and said solemnly, “The smaller the brain, the smarter the dog.” And then she kissed Shirley on the lips.

I’ll bet that kid never gets sick.