July 24, 2005

So, we went shopping...
I was out of dog food. Now understand, my dogs don't eat out of cans or bags. I buy 81% lean ground beef, cook it and mix it with froxen mixed veggies and rice. Flint has some kind of gluten or corn meal allergy and all commercial dog foods are made with 40% of one of the other in them. The lamb and rice formulas have little or none, but they're so darned expensive I needed a cheaper alternative. Our vet says my dogs eat better than him. Anyway, I mix up a batch and it lasts for 5 meals for each dog. So. Back when they were pups and eating grass a lot (becasue of the allergies), I figured it'd not hurt to add a little spinach or collard greens to their food. Echo will NOT eat it if I run out or forget the collard greens or spinach. Richard didn't believe me. For 4 days, she's been refusing to eat her food. He thought it was because she was living on the Old Roy munchie bones (a treat not meant to be a full diet). I told him no, it was because her food had no spinach/collard greens in it. Today I bought collard greens. I made a batch of dog food. I put it in their bowls for supper. She not only snarfed hers down, she went to Flint's half eaten bowl and ate the rest of his!No one believes me. The dog loves her greens. BTW, don't know if I mentioned this, but one day Richard was harassing me about feeding them "people food" when dog food was "healthier." I told him dogs are omnivores - they are basically carnivores but will eat greens if there's nothing else. I told him, somewhat pompously, "If God had meant dogs to eat grass they'd be out there grazing on it like cattle!"At this statement he pointed out to the yard. Echo and Flint were both chomping down the tender young shoots of grass in our yard as if they were starving. My dogs. Just like my kids. Marching to the beat of a different drummer.