This story (author unknown) has been 'floating around' the internet for a few months. I found a discussion of it on
alt.folklore.urban. There's an easier to read version of it
here. It involves a fox terrier named Jasper who eats twelve uncooked yeast rolls that a woman leaves out to rise before baking. The yeast begins to rise in the dog's stomach, causing him to swell up like a balloon:
"He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated."
The next day it's worse. The yeast has begun to ferment inside the dog's stomach, causing Jasper to become drunk:
"the darn dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging on the grass or headed 90 degrees in another direction."
Finally, it ends with fermented yeast burps, farts, and poops (that are rock-hard like 'Portland cement'). Now, this all sounds an awful lot like an urban legend, especially since it comes from an anonymous source. Would the yeast actually begin to rise and ferment in the dog's stomach, or would it be killed by stomach acid? I'm not sure. I'm guessing that given the quantity of yeast involved (twelve rolls), the yeast might actually cause the dog's stomach to swell quite a bit... so something like this could happen. Though whether it actually did happen is anyone's guess.
Comments
When I was a young boy, my grandmother (who was born in 1900) used to tell a very similar story about what happened to her dog, Toby, when SHE was a girl (which, if true, would place the incident around 1905-1915). Toby got into my great-grandmother's pan of bread dough and ate his fill. Then he went to take a nap next to the wood-burning stove, which (when the yeast rose) made him swell up like a huge balloon with a dog's head, legs, and tail. According to Grandma, the swelling gradually went down again and Toby survived. She didn't say anything about him being drunk or hung over afterward. Burps, flatulence, and feces weren't the sort of thing my Grandma would have carried on about in mixed company, so I don't know about that part of it.
She always told this as something that really happened and that she personally witnessed, and she was a woman of unimpeachable character and veracity-- at least as far as I know.
The dog ate the bread, the yeast began to rise in its stomach, etc. So, this relative of mine (I do think it was my greatgrandmother) called the vet, and he told her to carry the dog out into the snow and cover his stomach with it. I remember vividly the detail of this tiny woman (must have been my mom's gran, Ollie) carrying a large dog out into the snow.