When bad spiders bite you on the mouth.

If you're like me, a well-tempered black and tan runt standard dachshund, you know enough to watch out for bees and those scary lawn mowing machines, but you might not know about the hidden danger that might be lurking in your very own home. I'm here to tell you about spiders, specifically about the bad spiders that bite you on the mouth.

It was a quiet Saturday evening and the people who live with me had finally given me and my brother, Hunter, some food. Hunter ate so fast that he had to belch some of his food up again just to chew on it properly. He does that every time we eat; I don't know why he hasn't learned better. Anyway, I ate my food carefully and then licked my bowl clean so that it would be ready for more food whenever the people in my house got around to giving me some more. I also licked Hunter's bowl clean while he licked mine clean. We prefer to be thorough. Then I had some water. Well, I had to wait for one of the people who live in my house to change the water so that it would be fresh -- I'm not going to drink any hour-old water!

Then Hunter and I went outside to sniff grass, sniff each other and then to carefully mark out our territory in the back yard. This was followed by careful inspection of our marks, and each other's marks. As you know, sometimes it is necessary to re-mark a place when the scent has been covered up by another mark. Once the marking and re-marking had been completed, we came back inside to attend to our most important daily activity: sleeping.

Now, maybe you don't do this yourself, but I'm partial to doing a pre-nap run through of the entire eating area. Sometimes there are bits of food to be found around or near the bowls and, just to be certain that I hadn't missed anything, I licked both of the bowls clean one last time. This is when I encountered a strangely shaped dark bit on the floor. If my eyesight was better, I would probably have noticed that the dark spot had moved, but I was mostly working in "gathering" mode and it didn't occur to me what was really going on.

When I tried to eat the black bit, it bit back. Ouch! Right on the lips too! That made me mad and so I bit it again a couple of times. My face got all kind of numb and it wasn't really worth all of the trouble because the black bit (which I'm sure by now you've figured out was a bad spider) didn't taste all that good. It wasn't until the next morning that I discovered what had happened.

The people who live in my house saw that my cheeks had puffed out so much that I looked like a hamster. When the people who live in my house stopped laughing and pointing, they took pictures of me and then poked at me for a while. Given that it was Sunday, the people who live in my house were thrilled at the prospect of taking me to the vet -- they get a special weekend rate, I'm told.

The doctor poked at me, left me shivering on a cold metal table and then did stuff to me that I'm not at all disposed to talk about. But at the end of the visit I came home with some pills that made me even more inclined to nap. The people who live in my house mixed a pill in with peanut butter which is my favorite way to take pills. After a few days of peanut butter treats, my face slowly changed back to it's regular shape.

The lesson I've learned is that if you're going to eat something you've never seen before, be careful that it's not a bad spider that will bite you. Because, there are bad spiders that will bite you and make your face swell up. So, don't eat bad spiders that will bite you if you can help it.