Doug, the delicate fluffy white dog, has been getting sores on his skin since day one. We thought it was the grass fertilizer, the detergent, etc. Since it has continued into the winter we are thinking he might be allergic to his food. So, he gets new food (and since it would be too hard to explain to Mac, Mac gets new food too). However, they have to find something unusual to put in the hypo-allergenic food that wouldn’t be in any other dog foods on the market. It used to be lamb, but then they started making lamb dog food.

This is the reason why my dogs will be eating KANGAROO. Expecting the worst, I asked the vet and he said if Doug develops an allergy to Kangaroo, then we can feed him venison. I say, first the venison, then the Kangaroo. Doesn’t that make more sense? First the Disney characters, then the Pooh characters?

Well, later, I picked up the kangaroo from the vet. I asked Gwen (the assistant) if this was 100% Grade A kangaroo. She didn’t realize I was kidding. However, she did start reading the bag, then said a moment later, “Know how much kangaroo is in this?”
“10 percent?” I guessed, fearing the worst.
“Zero percent,” she said, grimly, then going off to track down just exactly how Dr. Morgan had gotten the idea the was any kangaroo at all in this stuff. I was relieved they hadn’t started to laugh and say “Har – Kangaroo – really had you going.”

I felt even better when Gwen returned and announced dryly that Dr. Morgan saw the brochure, it had kangaroos on it, there you go. We began trying to think why a marketing firm would choose kangaroos for its brochure. Well, I was trying, they were laughing at Dr. Morgan. (“Good thing they didn’t put HUMANS on the brochure.”) Turns out on further inspection of the bag (which it’s obvious no one had ever done) it was discovered that:

1) it’s made in Australia, and that
2) the office cats hadn’t seen the brochure and sensed it was 100% chicken and had chewed a hole in the bag.

So, I paid $50 for a partially empty bag of American chickens that had been flown to Australia and broken down into their essential proteins. (This is what makes it non-allergenic, at least that’s what Gwen surmised. I thought she might have double-checked this with Dr. Morgan, but he was hiding.)

So, I wasn’t too excited anymore about giving the dogs ersatz kangaroo, and I didn’t open the bag for a few days. I let them out before I went to bed and thought if I snuck the new food in when they were outside they might not notice it as much. The bag (which I had now read thoroughly) suggests slowly adding more food each day to their existing food. Of course, the chicken is a lighter color than the kangaroo (I still call it that). I was hoping they would be too sleepy the next morning to care. I set out their bowls in the hall with 20% kangaroo and 80% non-hydroliziginanted chicken, got ready for bed, and let them back in.

Dog noses shoving through the crack in the door! Dog noses immediately in the laundry room where the bag of kangaroo is! Dog noses racing down the hallway, dragging dog bodies along to the food bowl! Dog heads up to their necks in the food bowl! Dog tongues touching old food non-Australian chicken pellets 80% of the time and flipping them against the walls and doors! Plink! Snorffle! In less than a minute all the kangaroo pellets were in the dogs and all the native chicken pellets were scattered in the hallway.

Doug immediately stopped chewing on himself and his skin has cleared up.

Last fall, Mac and Doug were in the Living room admiring the new footstool.
Mac said, “I must say, I admire the Furless One’s taste. That is a fine article of furniture.”
“Mmmm,” Doug said, “Real quality. You can tell it’s built to last.”
“What’s it used for? Does it have a purpose?” Mac wondered aloud.
“I saw the large one put his feet on it,” Doug said.
“Perhaps we could put our feet on it as well. Do you think they’d mind?” Mac inquired politely.
“They’re in the other room. Don’t bother them. I’m sure it would be fine,” Doug answered confidently, “Here, I’ll go first.”

(Doug jumps on footstool.)

“Hmm,” Doug said, “Interesting height. Not as high as the other seating areas they bought for us. I could walk right across to this table — why, someone left an entire stick of butter here.”

And with that Doug and the butter were gone. All we found 5 minutes later was Mac licking the butter wrapper that Doug discarded.

Then, 2 hours later, the butter hit Douglas hard and he began to vomit, so Mac got some of the butter then, shall we say. In fact, Doug was polite enough to vomit in the bedroom while we were in the living room, Mac found it, and decided to clean it up. Not only did he clean up the vomit, he licked the carpet clean, and then he ate the carpet down to the mat, it was soooo tasty.

Doug got sick enough that I called Animal Poison Control and they said that was a serious amount of sodium for a small dog and his kidneys might fail, so Gary had to stay up all night and watch the dogs.

Anyway, everyone is fine and we have a hole in the carpet. Also, the S_____s have been warned about the dangers of giving salted food to dogs. Gary anticipates his parents will stop salting their food entirely.

Actually, I’m concerned the vet will think I have Munchusen’s Syndrome by Proxy and am inflicting illness in my dogs to gain sympathy.