The Surf and Turf

There are many ways for us dogs to supplement our diet, and one of my favorites is the SURF and TURF.

Now, I suspect that kitchen counters got their name because they attempt to COUNTER-act marauding canines like myself. Counters have height. Counters have depth. They can be a good place for good things to land. But no matter how awesome the kitchen counter is, the reality is that they are being used by busy human beings. Hungry human beings. Imperfect human beings that put the broiled chicken from Costco on the end of the island and then get a phone call from their sister-in-law. Or set the chocolate-chip cookies cooling on a rack just a little too close to the edge,, but then nature calls and they step out just long enough to micturate.

And thus, my dog friends, an absent owner shouldn't make your heart grow fonder; it should invite you to go...

Counter Surfing.

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Dolly and the Bread Dough

I had a Doberman friend named Dolly who pushed a dining room door open one December and gulped down twenty-six rising balls of dough that were in the second step of Aunt Millie’s Holiday Sweet Bread recipe. Twenty-six balls of EXPANDING dough, which did not stop doing their yeast-y expandy thing just because they were in Dolly’s stomach.

When Dolly’s owner returned to the kitchen twenty minutes later, Dolly was bug-eyed and bloated and required an emergency trip to the veterinarian. Once the medical team had induced vomiting and the (still-expanding) balls of dough had plopped out from Dolly and into a five-gallon pail that had been quickly procured from the storage room, the technicians commented that the clinic had never smelled so good! "It's like a bakery in here!" Aunt Millie’s recipe had not only withstood the test of time but also the acidity of Dolly’s stomach, and had come out in neat (albeit slimy) loaves, smelling just as good as they had on the kitchen counter hours before.

Dolly’s owner, however, who had been preparing a quadrupled recipe of holiday breads to share with friends and family, was less enthusiastic about the smell, for she had intended every single one of the aromatic loaves to be baking in the oven about now instead of being covered with digestive juices and coalescing in a big yellow pail. This was understandable, but the owner was still gracious and promised to send Aunt Millie’s recipe to the staff as every single person working that afternoon in the clinic had requested it based solely on the fragrance of Dolly's emesis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like to think of counters as a deterrent, but not an absolute. They SUGGEST that things on their surfaces are for people and not for animals, but there are chinks in the Corian. For instance, CATS. Need I say more? Okay, a little more. It’s disgusting. Why would an owner allow a CAT up on the counter but then yell at the DOG when we just put our paws up to take a little peek? There are people who have lick marks in the butter sitting out on the counter (yes, you read that correctly - LICK marks in the BUTTER, EGADS!) and it is not people-sized tongues doing the licking. No, those tongue marks in the butter are torti-sized and if the Forensics team were to be called in they would find feline DNA just writhing all over the Blue Bonnet. So disgusting. The butter. The tongue thing. The cats. EGADS!

Counters might deter, but the dog is wily. Resourceful. We wait until the owner is distracted, or runs to the grocery store, or goes to bed. Now remember, once the counter has been surfed by the canine, owners take precautions. They push the loaf of bread to the back corner, place a plastic pitcher in front of the thawing pork chops, and put the Wheat Thin box back in the pantry. They look around the kitchen and smile because they have taken PRECAUTIONS and besides, the dog hasn’t surfed the counter in at least three months. All is well.

The garage door shuts. We stretch and get up from our bed. Just a look. Perhaps a tiny little peek to see if anything is of interest. And REACHABLE. Interesting things are all over the kitchen but what is actually reachable is what we're concerned with. And don’t all the best quotes in life tell us to reach for the bars? (Or was it stars?) And to be successful, mortals must reach to attain their rolls. (goals?) Either way, all the best dogs stretch and reach for bars and rolls and any other of the good things in life. Reach by the sink. Reach by the stove. By the island and the fridge.

Just a reach with a little peek. That's all we're doing.

As in life, sometimes we actually reach our bars and achieve our rolls, and other times we must be patient and wait for another day. But I will tell you a little secret. Our owners come with flaws. Imperfection. They come with deadlines and appointment times and teacher conference lines and eventually they will slip up. They will not push the three-loaf container of sugar cinnamon bread from Costco far enough back on the counter. They were planning on taking it to work tomorrow for the employee holiday luncheon, but just remembered they had a haircut scheduled so they pushed it back a little bit until it bumped up right against the coffee maker and they probably should have maneuvered it over to the right and flat against the back of the counter but oh my, look at the time and away they went.

And the garage door shuts.

And we stretch and step off of our bed, just to take a little peek.

And it is of interest.

And it is reachable.

But is it wise? Well, I speak from experience when I say that eating three loaves of sugar cinnamon bread from Costco is very fun at the time of the event, starting from the satisfaction of hearing the container hit the floor, then chewing open the hard plastic wrap, then licking up every last crumb of the decadent deliciousness. That entire process was indeed very very enjoyable.

The less enjoyable aspect of ingesting the bread from Costco is the part that comes after. Remember Dolly and her bread dough distension? Well, the sugar cinnamon bread was less yeasty and expandy than Aunt Millie's, so thus not as life-threatening, but that cinnamon bread was dense and sweet and extremely abundant (leave it to Costco to have THREE loaves in a package). For the record, moderate to severe gastric distension is not any fun, and - just when you are trying to stretch out on the floor to give your stomach more room to expand - your owner enters stage right.

Now take moderate to severe gastric distension, add in a ringing in your ears from your name being said in a very high-pitched shreik-y way, then hydrogen peroxide being administered by your not-very-happy medical mama. Up comes the sugar cinnamon bread, down goes the gastric distention, and immediately I felt better. But, unlike my friend Dolly, no one in the room was oohing and aahing over how good my emesis smelled. No one asked for the recipe. No, rather, my doctor was rather stern, told me she hoped my stomach hurt all night because I deserved that for ruining the holiday lunch plans, and I was kenneled for the next two weeks every time I was left alone for any reason.

But, my dear dog friends, don’t let my three-loaf distension and discomfort discourage you from surfing the counters. There is food to be had, bars to be reached and rolls to be achieved. You can do it.

"Oh, you're going out to dinner? No, nothing for me, thanks. I plan to stay in and may order the Surf and Turf while you are gone.Good-bye. Have fun. Now...let's take a little peek at that menu."