My mom is always asking her clients, “Would your dog eat more than what you feed it?".
If they say yes and if their dog isn’t underweight, she nods her head approvingly. “Just remember,” she tells the owners, “most of us humans would love to eat more than we do, BUT we have to button our jeans. And your dog doesn’t wear jeans.”
You see, THIS is the problem when your mom is a veterinarian.
She has all these little rules and she doesn’t even care if I am hungry ALL of the time. YES, I would eat more than what she feeds me. NO, I don’t wear jeans. But I have needs. And I have wants. And, sometimes, I have the means, which is what I would like to talk about today.
My dear dog friends, there is a way we can supplement our veterinarian-approved but oh-so-limited menu right in our very own yards.
It involves some foraging, but your stomach will thank you at the end of the day. Here are my ideas...
First, there are the birds. Well, we probably shouldn’t actually EAT the birds. I mean, I’m sure they could be tasty, but the one time I tried to catch a bird at the feeder my mom just about had a conniption.
“Sophie! No! What are you thinking? That is a BIRD! We LOVE birds! I am putting out food for THEM, THEY are not food for YOU.”
Okay, fine, let the slow-moving sparrows live. Obviously, my mom has forgotten about all that ‘survival of the fittest’ stuff, but it’s really not the actual birds we’re interested in here, anyway. It’s their FOOD. Bird food. Breakfast of champions. Full of teeny tiny crunchy seeds, a sprinkling of suet crumbles and occasionally topped with a dollop of avian droppings. Delectable, and a wonderful addition to any dog’s diet.
“Yuck. Could you dogs possibly eat any more bird seed? It appears my entire Fleet Farm purchase of sunflower seeds is in this bag of picked-up poop.”
Winter is the best time to forage for birdseed. Mom sprinkles it on top of the snow for the ground-feeding birds (“NOT the ground-feeding dogs!”) and it is a bit of how I imagine toppings on an ice cream sundae would taste. Another bonus – in the winter, there are lots of wild turkeys that visit our yard, and they always leave little yummy treats behind. Poultry Poop-sicles, I call them. Mom is not impressed by this exotic food source.
“Yuck. Do NOT try to lick my face. I saw what you were doing out there."
In the summer, another great way to forage for food is to check out the raspberry bushes. These little fruits are quite tasty, but for a dog to obtain this healthy food source it does call for a bit of discretion. If you think my mom doesn’t like me eating something that the birds love, guess how she feels about me eating something that SHE loves.
“HEY! What are you doing? Sophie! Get out of those raspberries this minute!!”
It’s a bit confusing because she throws the overripe raspberries up onto the driveway so I can eat them, but dragon fire comes out of her mouth if I actually approach the bushes.
“Shoo! Get away! I wait all YEAR for these raspberries. Scram! Go eat the ones on the driveway.”
We have blackberries that grow on the edge of the woods, but the fruit grows high and the thorns are long so I leave those for my mom, the birds, or whatever other hardy soul dares brave the swarms of mosquitoes that lurk in the brush. This summer, the mosquitoes are so thick in our yard that some evenings at dusk Mom swears they are picked up on the weather radar in Chanhassen.
Garden produce is another excellent option for dogs. Zucchini has a nice firm texture, and cucumbers a bit of a tangy twist. Green beans are better than nothing, and pea pods a satisfying crunch. Corn is too well-wrapped to really enjoy, but once in a while someone removes the husks and leaves the corn on the front step. At times like this, the palatability of raw corn pales in comparison to the satisfaction that comes from the capture, the sprint, and the color commentary that accompanies the entire experience.
“Hey! What do you have? Omigosh! She’s got the corn! Sophie, drop it! Oh, you naughty dog! That’s for supper. Hurry! She went around the back of the house. Sophie, come back here!”
My mom got smart a few years ago and put the garden outside of the invisible fence boundary. But there’s many a day where she brings the garden produce up to the back deck and then wanders off to do another chore in the yard.
The trick is to look disinterested…look disinterested… then boom! Grab the treasure and race off to the corner of the yard. If you can just get a few bite marks up and down the sides, then they usually just let you keep the whole thing. It makes for a very interesting twenty minutes to dissect out the bowels of a zucchini squirrel. Sometimes I toss mine in the air to show their furry squirrel cousins in the tree just who’s boss.
Veggies and fruits are healthy snacks, birdseed is good roughage, but once in a while every dog needs just that little something extra to brighten up their day. And I have found my favorite. Slug Beer.
Now, I realize not every yard will have this delicacy, but I look forward to this seasonal treat every summer. It only appears when the hosta and ligularia plants are in full foliage, and I know the first batch is about to be served when Mom starts talking to herself by the hostas.
“Oh yuck! Slime everywhere! And look at these leaves – they’re all chewed up. I see it’s time to give you smarmy little slugs a place to drown your sorrows.”
Slug Beer is usually served in little yogurt cups, and tends to be the oldest or least-liked beer in the house. Mom tucks the beer-filled cups down in the mulch in the evening, because I guess slugs like to do their drinking at night. On a good morning, there will be half a dozen slugs in each cup, drowned in their own gluttony.
I’ve heard Mom say that slugs are even more attracted to the beer when there are other slug bodies floating in the barley brine, so she often uses a cup for several nights in a row.
My sister, Ellie and I also find the concoction more interesting after the second or third night, and we head straight toward the little cups the second my mom lets us out in the morning. As usual when foraging in the yard, speed and discretion are mandatory if you want to enjoy Slug Beer.
“Hurry up, girls. Go potty. Let me grab my coffee. Hey, where are you guys? Oh, no! Get out of there! Yuck! That is so gross! Do you realize you both just drank beer that was full of dead slugs? That is SO disgusting!”
Hey, dogs don’t wear jeans, and our taste buds are border-line discriminating, so to each his own. I thought the Slug Beer was very tasty.
And now, my dog friends, go forth and live off the land. Expand your palate. Let's prove to our owners once and for all that, yes, we definitely WOULD eat more than what they feed us.
Hey Sophie that's a great slug beer tip (for Margo for getting slugs. Niko and Maya are already plotting about how to drink the beer and get the slugs before Margo wastes it all.)