Cooking with dogs

[Tab]

Take one short-haird 20 lb dog... (No, just joking)

We have five dogs - three large and two small. One of the large and one of the small are young - just over two years now. The rest are older and aren't a problem.

Of the younger ones, one is a cross between a hound and a boxer (we think - got him from a shelter, so we're not really sure). He loves to stand on his rear legs and can get into anything. The other is his cohort, his partner-in-crime, our small little emergency backup dog, a Shih-Tzu.

Try to imagine cooking in an environment where you can't leave the counter with food on it unattended, even for a minute. You can't go to the bathroom, turn on the gas grill, answer a question from your son, anything that means leaving the kitchen before putting all food out of reach (putting it on top of the fridge, inside the cold oven, on top of the shelves, anything at least six feet high).

Not only that, but once you serve it, everything that didn't go in the first round has to be in a heavy lidded pot or on top of the fridge, or somewhere out of reach.

Last night, feeling a bit lazy, we ordered a pizza. I don't like to eat a lot of pizza, but this type is good, and I had two slices, my wife had two, my son had one, and my wife closed the box tight and left it on the stove top.

Not five minutes later she asked if I had opened the box. I said no, as I hadn't been in the room since she closed it. My son was upstairs, so the was only one culprit - I look in the living room (it's an open connecting space) and there is Coco (the hound/boxer) who has dragged out the whole remaining large pizza, wax paper and all, and was munching out in front of the TV.

I have had fish disappear on me, whole tubs of grated Romano, even sticks of butter. Nothing is excluded.

On one famous afternoon, I bought a pack of sausages that I was going to use, they were still in their store packaging. I had them on the counter. Went to do something for a second, came back, couldn't find the sausages. I did, however, find an empty packing shell in the living room. Coco had stolen the whole thing of sausages and scarfed them down. So, needing something for dinner, my wife picked up one of those hot roasted whole chickens from the store on her way home. When she got home, she put it on the counter - big mistake. 10 minutes later, the chicken is missing and Coco and his Shih-tzu cohort Teddy are having a picnic on the lawn with a whole roasted chicken.

Having blown two dinners already - sausage, and then the chicken - and still not having anything to eat we ordered a pizza. And we got to eat most of it, but the two slices not yet eaten magically disappeared. Guess how.

I swear, I go through this every night I cook. When I prep, cook, let things cool, hold things for seconds - they all get shoved in out of the way places like on top of the fridge or on top of the hutch. You'd think whoever lived here was a 9 ft tall cook, based on where things are set aside.

Oh, and my set of wooden spoons that I've used for years? All gone. Something can be bubbling in the pot on the stove with a wooden spoon to stir it next to it, and next thing we know, it's a chew toy for the dogs. I reordered a set and I only have one left of that, and will have to order yet Another set. Other types of spoons are no less immune, but I personally prefer wooden, yet they've done it with the vinyl ones too.

Because of the house configuration, it's not easy to keep him out of the kitchen.

(sigh)

[kestrel91316]

1. One of my cats has a crack cocaine-like addiction to fresh leafy

greens, particularly spinach. He will get onto the kitchen counter and start fussing and crying and begging and, yes, go so far as to STEAL a leaf when I am washing and prepping it. He can hear me working with leafy greens from the bedroom and comes running in. If he gets a leaf he runs around like a crazy person (we call it "the rips") and then settles down and gnaws on it and eats a good portion, then comes back crying for more. If he realizes it's not spinach he will still beg and sneak, but not as enthisiastically. Collards and chard will suffice; lettuce is his least favorite.

I know, it's weird. But this is the same cat who comes racing into the bathroom when I am blow-drying my hair and fusses until I blow HIM with the warm air for a minute or three.

[Love Bug]

9. Did you name him "Popeye"? lol

[sandnsea]

2. My dog knows when we're done eating

We can leave our food almost any time, anywhere, and she won't touch it. But when we're done, somehow she knows and then... get out of the way! And she never bothers anything on the counters. She's such a good girl. Akitas are great.

[IDemo]

3. Our dog has also helped herself to a roast chicken off the counter top

along with numerous other goodies. Her real love is the garden, though. She has cleaned out the cabbages this year, and it's a challenge keeping her out from under the grape vine (and I know grapes are bad for dogs). She will eat tomatoes off the vine, and last year gobbled a whole large jalapeno, stem and all, off the patio table. Didn't seem to faze her.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Hmmm .... sounds as if 'some dogs' need a dose of some masterful eyeballing

I've always managed to get our dogs to do as I wish with a deep, stern sounding voice and a penetrating eye. And we've had Border Collies .... the masters of the masterful eyes.

Our girl is very attuned to what we're doing at any moment. She has tried to beg from time to time. She gets nothing but a stern look from us. The begging is now a rare instance. She just lays nearby, watching us. but she (almost) never begs.

When I do give her human food, it is always in a setting disconnected from the kitchen - usually the yard.

[Tab]

5. All of ours, except for this scarfbag, behave

And I have a border collie too. I have a cartoon on my fridge of Charlie Brown under the tree saying he heard Border Collies are nice dogs, and Snoopy is thinking, "Yeah, if you don't mind someone staring at you all the time".

Mine is actually part Border Collie, part schizophrenic. It's a nightmare to empty the dishwasher - the tinkling of the silverware and glasses sends him into a frenzy.

That's annoying, but at least he doesn't steal food off the counter. That's when it really becomes problematic.

[grasswire]

7. I'm afraid of that border collie stare

There's one in my family.

[housewolf]

6. Sounds like a candiate for "The Dog Whisperer"!

Have you ever watched Caesar Milan, "The Dog Whisperer", on the National Geographic Chanel? It's amazing what he can do with animals. They accept video tapes of problem dogs as potential candidates for help/show segments. Check it out, very entertaining and educational for dog lovers.

Dogs are scavengers by nature. It's their job to clean up all avaliable edibles, so training them to not help themselves to food can be a challenge.

[kcass1954]

8. Dufus-doggy is 100 or so pounds of pure stupidity.

He isn't too bad when I'm in the kitchen alone, and will usually leave the room if I speak to him sternly. But he's totally intolerable when Mr. kcass is there. Despite all my grumblings, Mr. kcass continues to feed Dufus from his plate. It's a huge source of friction between us - when I was growing up, the dining room was totally off-limits to our dog during mealtimes.

We've always watched Dufus carefully in the kitchen. He's been known to grab things near the edge of the counter on his way by. My kids lose more sandwiches when they turn around to put the cold cuts back in the fridge. Dufus has recently decided that it's okay to put his front paws on the counter so he can reach farther back, so nothing is safe any more, unless you're there to guard it.

At least he doesn't like my shoes any more.

[Love Bug]

10. I had a cat once that ate all the frosting off a german chocolate cake

I had made the cake for dinner and after we had some, I covered it loosely with some saran wrap because I didn't have a cake container or a pot deep enough to cover it. I did think about the cat but thought he wouldn't be interested in it. Big mistake. When I got up the next morning, he had pulled off the saran wrap and ate all the coconut and walnut frosting off the top of the cake!

Because of that and some other incidents I won't describe here, the following Thanksgiving I decided to thaw the turkey by floating it in a bathtub full of water. He tried to get it, too, because I saw him sitting at the edge of the tub, contemplating the turkey and trying to figure out a way to get to it without getting wet. Heh.

He was a great cat but you had to watch him!

[japple]

13. I once had a Siamese cat who jumped up on the counter

while the family was at church and ate the center out of a coconut custard pie. We just cut a swath around the hole and sliced the rest of the pie and ate it. But after that, we usually put things where he couldn't get them. He was one clever cat.

[Love Bug]

14. I thought about doing that with the cake,

but without the icing, what's the point?

[Arkansas Granny]

11. I have a friend who once had a cat who jumped up on the counter,

and before she could grab him, he had snagged a pork chop while it was sizzling in the skilet and flipped it out on the floor for consumption with his littermate. If we hadn't seen it with our own eyes, we would never have guessed how they had gotten that pork chop. That went a long way to explain other mysterious disappearances from the kitchen.

[fudge stripe cookays]

22. My cat Oreo used to do that...

steal food while I was eating it!

The first time, I was eating at my coffee table watching TV, and she was gazing at my fries. Suddenly, lightning fast, she leaped between me and the fries and grabbed one, carrying it off to a floor pillow nearby. I was laughing so hard I didn't do anything.

Then, a few years later, she did the same thing! I had just moved into a new place, didn't have any furniture yet, and had grabbed some take out Greek food. It was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, and then the phone rang, so I had to go into the room adjoining the living room to get it, but had the food in sight.

She kept glancing at it, inching closer and closer, and I kept speaking sharply to her. Suddenly, she jumped across the room, grabbed my hunk of souvlaki, and went carrying it off across the room, hanging out of one side of her mouth.

That cat was hysterical. Would do ANYTHING to steal food, sneak into my pantry, etc.
I still miss her.

[hippywife]

12. If that happened at our house

we would soon be less one dog in a real hurry. I won't tolerate that kind of behaviour from animals and my husband is even less tolerant of it.

[Mojorabbit]

15. I had a memorable

Thanksgiving years ago. I had removed the turkey and had it resting on my grandmother's platter covered with foil. A crash, and then around the corner came my greyhound carrying the entire turkey in her mouth.
She had never done anything like that before. I had a house full of people over for dinner and luckily I had also cooked a ham. It is one of my favorite memories of her. That little head with the huge bird in her mouth. I sure miss that pup.

[Tab]

16. Yeah, and I bet her tail was high and stiff

Dogs raise their tails high and stiff when they want to parade something. She must have been so proud and getting such a prize. She was probably the proudest dog on the planet for those few minutes (before everyone started screaming at her :) ).

[Dover]

17. My dog is a perfect gentleman when it comes to our meals

however he is not so polite with the cats' food. If they don't eat fast enough he picks up and carries away their entire dish! I switched to using a really heavy pottery bowl for their food
to make it more difficult, but he manages to scoot it around. I think it's a territorial power play
with the kitties, though he knows he could never get away with that with us. The cats complained bitterly to the management (that would be me) who finally made arrangements for separate eating locations (dog outside, cats inside).

Have you considered putting the dogs outside while you prepare and eat your meals? Maybe they can
learn to wash dishes!

[Tab]

18. Learn to wash dishes??

There was a couple who had another couple over for dinner.

The invited couple was close enough (as friends) to make comments others might restrain from.

At dinner they noticed the plates seemed dirty and commented on that fact to the host.

"Oh no", she replied cheerfully, "they're as clean as soap and water can make them".

Dubious, but theit fears allayed, the invited couple sat down and ate dinner.

Afterwards, the female friend offered to help clean the dishes.

"Oh, no need" said the host, "We'll just let soap and water do the work."

with that, she placed the dirty dishes on the floor and called out to her dogs, "Here, Soap!", "Here Water!!"

[Dover]

19. Heheh!

And together they made suds. The end.

[Warpy]

20. I had a cat with a butter addiction

and could manage to get into butter dishes that had been clicked closed.

(this cat also had doorknobs figured out, no way to keep her out of a room)

I resigned myself to hard butter for her 13 year life.

Cats are even worse than dogs. You know the top of the fridge? They jump.

[MountainLaurel]

21. Coco should meet Tristan

The bastard who ate the one green pepper I could coax from my garden in Maine, in addition to a wide variety of other food (and non-food) products.