Thursday, January 24, 2008, 05:51
Something Rotten in the State of Denmark
In order for this to be significant, you have to know a little bit of background about our Springer spaniel, Charlie.
Charlie is one of those dogs who will drag something rotten home and then chew on it until I can get it away from him.
Case in point: several years ago when I took Pixie and Charlie out for a walk along the road west of our house, Charlie found a deer carcass. I suppose it was what was left of a deer that one of the neighbors had gotten during deer hunting. It was early in the spring when there was still snow on the ground, but it was a warm day, and the snow was melting.
At any rate, Charlie found the deer carcass, pulled off one of the legs and then headed for home on the run. Home was almost a mile away, but he trotted the whole distance, carrying that deer leg in his mouth.
Of course, Pixie and I could not keep up with him, and he made it home long before we did. By the time we arrived in the yard, Charlie was comfortably settled down in the sun, chewing on the deer leg.
I put Pixie in the house, and then began the battle of getting the leg away from Charlie. He did not want to give up what he had found and carried home. The stand-off, after a lot of yelling on my part and a lot of growling on Charlie's part, ended when I had the forethought to toss my stocking cap down on the deer leg.
Charlie knew he had lost the battle then and gave up.
I had won the battle, but I was sorry, in a way, because now I had to wash my stocking cap. And my gloves. The sooner the better.
Since it was warm and had been warm for a couple of days, that deer leg was really stinky. I gingergly grabbed a hold of it, carried it in the house, double-wrapped it in a plastic bag and put it with the garbage in the basement. The smell was so bad that I was gagging, and when I had finished wrapping up the stinky deer leg, I went around the house with a can of Lysol spray. I also liberally doused the garbage can downstairs with Lysol spray to try to keep the smell to a minimum.
The smell, I noticed, had not bothered Charlie. He had thought the rotten deer leg was a real treat.
Ol' Roy
Considering Charlie's history with rotten deer legs, when the dog would not eat his dog food a couple of weeks ago, I thought there was something terribly wrong with him and that he was sick.
Charlie does not especially care for straight dry dog food. One time while I was listening to Patricia McConnell (Calling all Pets/Public Radio) I found out why Charlie isn't crazy about dry dog food. Some dogs, McConnell said, view dry dog food as "sort of" food and that's why many of them will try to cover it up with their noses when they get dry dog food. Charlie is one of those who thinks that dry dog food, even though it is Science Diet, is only "sort of" food. (I am sure the manufacturers would love to hear *that*.)
Because Charlie is not crazy about dry dog food, for years, Randy and I have been putting little bits of leftovers in Charlie's food to get him to eat his breakfast or supper. This always works well, and if it's hamburger or some venison steak or even rice or pasta, Charlie is happy.
The problem is that we don't always have leftovers we can put with Charlie's dog food. Therefore, one day while I was in Wal-Mart and spied cans of Ol' Roy dog food, I decided I ought to get some. I bought several cans, and that night, we added a little bit of canned dog food to Charlie's supper. In the past, I have bought other brands, such as Alpo and Strongheart, and Charlie has liked those quite well.
Charlie ate his supper with Ol' Roy in it, and we didn't think a thing about it.
Left Untouched
Over the next several days, however, Charlie became more and more hesitant to eat his dog food. And then one morning, on a Sunday, he wouldn't eat at all. By Sunday evening, his dog food was still untouched. He had not eaten a single bite. Randy put more canned Ol' Roy on the dog food and mixed it in, thinking that it would encourage Charlie to eat his supper. But Charlie still refused to eat.
By the time I let Charlie out of his kennel when I went out to give the horses more hay and warm water before I went to bed, I was really worried.
Any time that an animal will not eat is time to worry. And if Charlie still refused to eat the next morning, I knew I would have to take him into the vet clinic. Lyme disease, which Charlie has had five times in spite of getting vaccine every year, is one thing that will make a dog refuse to eat. But it was January, and it had been cold for a long time, and I thought it was unlikely that Charlie would develop Lyme disease a couple of months after he might have had a deer tick on him. Kidney disease and liver disease can also make a dog refuse to eat, however, as can stomach problems of several types.
The experiment
As an experiment, to see if he would eat *something* -- when I let Charlie out of his kennel, I offered him a biscuit.
"You have to be hungry, Charlie," I said. "You haven't eaten all day."
Charlie snapped the biscuit out of my fingers so quickly that I was glad I was wearing gloves. I reached into my pocket for some dry dog food. I always carry dry dog food in my pocket as a treat for the dogs. (And isn't that strange? What Charlie thinks of as "sort of" food when it's in his dish, he thinks of as "something special" when it comes out of my pocket.)
Charlie also snapped the dry dog food out of my fingers.
"Look here, Charlie," I said.
I reached into the Rubbermaid container where we keep the dry dog food and took out a handful. Charlie saw me get the dog food, and after I went outside and put it on the ground for him, he dove into it. I came back to the house at one point to get a fresh bucket of water for Isabelle, and Charlie was still nosing around on the ground to see if maybe he had missed a piece .
And this from a dog who thinks dry dog food is only "sort of" food.
After I put Charlie in his kennel when I was finished with the horses, I grabbed another handful of dry dog food.
"Want some more?" I asked as I put the dog food on Charlie's blanket.
Once again, Charlie dove into the dry dog food.
He was, indeed, hungry.
And it was at that point I realized there must be something terribly wrong with the canned Ol'Roy dog food. Up to now, Pixie had been getting a little bit of the Ol' Roy too, but she had not seemed to think there was anything wrong with it.
Leftovers again
The next morning, I scrounged around for some leftovers and finally settled on a piece of bread that I could mix with Charlie's breakfast. Charlie did not mind and ate every bite of his dog food and bread.
When I told Randy about the Ol' Roy, we agreed not to feed any more of it to the dogs. Not that it would matter since Charlie refuses to eat it.
But doesn't that really make you wonder? Just what *is* in that Ol' Roy canned food that Charlie knows is there? The label says it is manufactured in the USA but what have they put in it? Rat poison? The problems with the pet food ingredients manufactured in China was a year ago. And yes, some Ol' Roy wet food was on the list of tainted food. But don't they have that straightened out by now?
On different occasions besides the deer leg, Charlie has dragged home other parts of deer and also has dug up weeks-old dead gophers Randy has buried in the hayfield and has carried fish heads home that the neighbor tossed in the ditch when he was finished cleaning fish. Charlie also loves to chew on frozen horse manure in the winter, and I am constantly reminding him that it is *not* dog food.
And yet, there is something so "off" about the Ol' Roy canned food that Charlie won't touch it.
From now on, Charlie and Pixie will get a little bit of our leftovers as treats with their food. If I have to, I will fry up a pound of hamburger especially for them.
I'm sure they won't mind a bit.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 03:36
Just Barely
I made the mistake of calculating the average high temperature last week. It was 1.2 degrees. And that was without the windchill. The average daily temperature last week, then, was just barely above zero.
The weather wasn't any warmer Tuesday -- 5 degrees for an afternoon high with a stiff wind out of the west/northwest making it feel more like 15 or 20 below zero Fahrenheit. Not an especially pleasant day for a funeral, but those are the types of things cannot necessarily be planned for a nice day.
Actually, it wasn't really a funeral at our church on Tuesday, per se. It was a visitation and then burial in the church cemetery followed by lunch for the mourners afterward. The lady had lived around here for years and years, but after her husband died (nearly 30 years ago now) she moved away. The actual funeral was up north, but the burial was here. Her husband is buried in our cemetery, so it would only make sense to bring her here for burial.
The family did not stay outside at the cemetery long. It was far too cold with too much windchill. When they came back in the church, they were ready for something to eat and something warm to drink. I spent the morning making food and the afternoon serving it. Not that I minded. Someone else did it for our family when my mother passed away and then later on when Dad died.
One pleasant surprise is that my truck started on Monday and again on Tuesday when I needed to leave. We put a new battery in it last summer, and I am glad we did. Otherwise my little old GMC that does not have power anything, except for the steering, might not have been so willing to start. A new, strong battery can make a big difference when the weather is very cold.
More Snow
It snowed again on Monday. Only an inch or so. Just enough to make the roads slippery and treacherous. The air is far too cold to squeeze much snow out of it. The side roads around here are quite slippery. The same thing happened last week. It only snowed an inch or two, but just enough to make driving really treacherous. On the main roads, conditions are right to form black ice. That's not good, either. It's icy, but you can't see the ice and you think you are driving on bare road. I am still hoping for substantially more snow before spring to help soak up the soil and subsoil. We still have two months yet, or maybe a little more, when snowfall is a possibility.
LeAnn R. Ralph