Mastication

I gave each dog a carrot chunk measuring about an inch around and half an inch thick. Miró crunched his; Alanis swallowed hers whole. Carrots go out of dogs in the same shape they went in. You have to wonder—or I have to—how Alanis will feel when that chunk of carrot works its way through.  She swallows whole just about any food that will fit down her throat.  Chew treats designed to clean teeth are wasted on her, as are breath tablets designed for dogs.  In nearly twelve years, she hasn’t figured out that what goes around, comes around, or out.

Dogs must trust us to feed them the right stuff because, it seems to me, a dog will eat just about anything. Who hasn’t lost a pair of bunny slippers*, a plant, a sock or a rock to the family dog? If the bunny slippers feel disagreeable later (they did not), the dog cheerfully barfs them up, preferably on the living room carpet. If the dog can’t barf up the offending food or non-food item, we hurry the dog to the vet for some expensive X-rays, sometimes followed by surgery, usually on the weekend. We are happy and grateful when all goes well, even if we have thoughts of murdering the dog on whom we’ve expended so much emotional and financial coin to save. But who’s counting? Certainly not the dog.

*My second-favorite childhood dog, Silver the Poodle, ate the fuzzy bunnies off my prized slippers. I felt betrayed.