Check out our latest magazine... Read Online

It's a Dog's Life: Foods are Seasonal, Treats are Perennial

Thursday, 14 November 2024 08:00

By Teddy (via Helen Stockton)

Despite enduring health and weight checks at the vets, Teddy still enjoys a treat when the opportunity arises, as his human interpreter, Helen Stockton explains

As the nights draw in, there is a seasonal shift in the domestic menu, as the makers of our dog food brand are quick to make appropriate adjustments to their products. Having enjoyed a Halloween special incorporating pumpkin, our palates are now being readied for a three-bird special Christmas dinner. Perhaps ‘Her Indoors’ ought to read the label and double check there are no sprouts. Climate change is a serious issue and we wouldn’t want to contribute to our household’s toxic emissions...

And it’s not just myself and the apprentice who notice minor variations to our diet as the seasons change. In the summer it’s all salads and fresh, light fare, with fruit for pudding but in the winter it’s soup, stews and roast dinners with crumbles and pies, for ‘Them Indoors’. It’s just as well they have us to force them out in all weathers as I suspect they’d otherwise be gaining an extra layer of insulation.

There is, of course, an overlap between what we eat and what they eat. ‘Her Indoors’ performance on the ‘treats for furs’ front, despite careful training over many years, is, to be honest, lamentable. She is a fierce guardian of doggy waistlines as she has to face the day of reckoning, when we climb onto the scales at the vets. I just sit down nicely, resigned to my fate, but the apprentice has a good tactic to avoid being weighed.

She usually refuses to sit, and fidgets around so that the scales can’t give a clear reading. Last time, with an awareness of the situational irony, Bear was bribed with a treat to sit, which, in fairness, she did, but she wagged her tail so frantically she still couldn’t be weighed accurately and they had to go for an estimated reading. It was a proud moment.

Anyway, if ‘Her Indoors’ is a dead loss in terms of tasty titbits, ‘Him Indoors’ is ace! Uninhibited by vet visits, he grates cheese for us, sneaks us crisps from his packet, and, in a nod to healthy eating, cuts up pieces of carrot and pepper. If there is a roast chicken he always picks off little bits and gives them to us. Delicious! ‘Her Indoors’ tells him off for doing this, but after thirty-five years of marriage, he is pretty impervious to scoldings and just moves into covert mode which is fine with us. It does mean, however, that whenever he heads to the kitchen he has a canine escort and we can both hear the sound of the cheese grater being removed from the drawer from anywhere in the house. We are highly trained where food is concerned, what can I tell you!

Share

More from Animals

© Sussex Living and Aiir 2024 | Unit 4 Regent Business Centre, 6 Jubilee Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, RH15 9TL