Daily Fiber

How could something so cute

Do something like this?

True, it all started over eight years ago when we adopted our dog from an animal shelter.  She had been a stray and was picked up by animal control and brought to the shelter.  Judging by her condition at that time, it was estimated that she had been on her own for several months.  She was a mess–long matted hair covering a skin and bones little body.  She is a fantastic dog, except for one thing.  In order to survive on her own, she had to hunt and gather every bit of garbage possible and fight off any other creatures who wanted to take it from her.  I should have known better, but I tried to take something away from her in her best interest. 

What was I trying to take from her?  That’s an odd story.  My DP and I generally take the dog together on her last walk of the day; we usually walk the same route in the evening.  On this route, we pass a house with a front bay window and four Yorkies.  Why is it that they usually come in packs?  This house has often put bread in their front yard.  I imagine that their reasoning is the the bread and squirrels attracted by the bread will amuse and delight the pack of Yorkies.  They have dogs–don’t they understand that dogs will also want to eat the bread?  But no, the item in question wasn’t bread.

I can only place a guess at what they were thinking this time.  They must have had some dog food that the pack didn’t like or had gone rancid.  You can’t just throw the dog food away, you should use it to mulch the trees in your front yard.  Yes, you did read that correctly.   A month ago when it first appeared I thought that it was some sort of pelletized mulch, then the dog started eating it like there was no other source of food available (certainly not her high-quality nutritionally balanced kibble waiting at home).   Another neighbor was worried that they were trying to poison the neghborhood dogs.  We would shorten her leash when we approached the Yorkie house–most of the time.  Some nights we would be talking and not notice until the dog was jerking toward a tree and filling her gullet as quickly as possible.   We would just pull her back to the sidewalk and continue on, bewildered why anyone in their right mind uses dog food as a mulch.

With the raining and drying cycles in the last few weeks, the dog food turned to mush and then dried in a solid mass.  The dog would now try to break of a piece of the rancid dog food mulch when we weren’t watching.  That is what happened last night.  I should have known better.  I should have remembered other times that I have tried to remove horrible things from her mouth.  But no, I didn’t want her to get sick.  The wilderbeastie finally dropped the prized piece of rancid dog food mulch and decided that my flesh, the flesh of the hand that feeds her and rubs her ears, would make a nice substitute.