They are incorrigible browsers. From the time we brought them home to live with us, any time they were out in the backyard or on walks their browsing was constant and seemingly unstoppable. Almost anything seemed to qualify as edibly attractive, from evergreen needles to bits of desiccated plant matter. When we took Jackie in to the emergency animal hospital yesterday afternoon one of the technicians said they were suffering from pica. It's actually, she said, a mental condition where animals fixate on browsing and continually look for objects to satisfy their need.

But when researching pica, I find it's essentially non-food items that qualify in the pica classification and what attracts Jack and Jill are things that might be considered food for animals; they don't try to eat plastic, paper, light bulbs. While in their puppy stage which they aren't entirely yet free of, they would chew just about anything and then swallow the bits though mostly they were scattered everywhere. This was a habit separate and apart from browsing. Elk horn seems to help their chewing need, although given the opportunity they'll chew on leather gloves on occasion.

Yesterday, just after we returned from our usual ravine walk and as I was cleaning Jackie's paws from the muck that the trails are now full of awaiting a covering of snow, I could see something was awry. His stance was awkward, his legs somewhat akimbo and he was not responding as he usually does. When I set him down he was swaying. That continued and became more severe. It seemed to us that something had affected his central nervous system.

Again, the browsing. In various parts of the ravine there are wild apple trees. The apples now fallen to the ground have been fermenting. These tidbits are particularly attractive to Jack and Jill. We try to restrain them, but haven't been overly concerned when they happen to ingest bits of apple. We should have been. At the hospital they told us that because of the milder-than-normal weather those apples and mushrooms that might be lying about on the forest floor have been perfect hosts for mould. The mould contains toxic chemicals. While I thought that Jackie might be mildly inebriated because of his actions, they felt he had been poisoned and asked permission to make him vomit.

Driving to the hospital he had become more reactive; sharply drawing back, acutely aware of sound and movement. One moment he would seem to be nodding off, the next he would jerk his head back, and then the trembling would begin. The veterinarian who examined him recommended that we leave him overnight. They wanted to monitor him closely, do bloodwork, and other probing examinations, hoping that his liver would not have been compromised by the toxins in what we presumed to be the problem-causing apples.

By eight in the evening he was much improved, they were giving him a charcoal treatment, and he was being irrigated continually. Shortly after six this morning they called to let us know he seemed normal, that we would get a call around noon to come and pick him up. That call came at nine, and off we went. We hope to prevent future such ordeals. He came back to us wired and exhausted, both.

Jillie didn't seem too troubled by his absence throughout the afternoon and evening, which completely took us by surprise, given their closely bonded relationship as twins and playmates. She was matter-of-fact about their temporary separation; we had been doting, giving her more attention in his absence, fearing she would be deleteriously impacted; no such thing, evidently.

He almost leaped out of the vet's arms into mine when we regained possession of his little suffering frame. While at the hospital he was frantic-in-motion, just couldn't keep still for a moment. The minute we got into the car to return home, calm suffused him and he settled down, and slept.