Today's thankful: Dogs

Sure, there are lots of things to be thankful for when it comes to dogs, but today in particular, I am thankful for dogs who will eat anything.

It occurred to me as I was making pancakes for lunch today that the first two are usually dog pancakes, meaning they are too ugly to give to a human, so I feed them to the dog. She loves this plan.

When I was a kid, we had an outside dog who would, literally, try to eat anything we threw out the back door. One time my dad emptied a mousetrap from the garage with a still alive mouse in it. He tossed the squeaker out the back door, and the dog caught it midair.  Since she was a beagle, she swallowed it without chewing. She had the most bizarre look on her face for a while after that one. Made me think of the old woman who swallowed a spider that wiggled and jiggled and giggled inside her, ‘cept the dog wasn’t laughing.

Most of the time we threw actual food to the dog. Anytime there was a kitchen disaster, mom would just throw it out to the dog. One of my favorite things to do was throw the remainder of my dinner out to the dog. She would just get so tail wagging happy. We never had a garbage disposal. Didn’t need one; we had a dog.

I have a family dog now who doesn’t have the guttural constitution that my childhood dog had, even though she is part beagle. I had to learn the hard way that she can’t handle tomato products. Honestly, she can’t handle tomatoes or spices of any kind, which pretty much covers what I cook. She doesn’t get as many leftovers as I would like to give her because of her delicate constitution, but I do still enjoy throwing stuff out to the dog. And on pancake day, I can do just that.