Yes, We REALLY Do Eat That Much Food!

Some of my friends expressed surprise at the amount of food the Littlest Ninja was delivering to us (in the last post). I just wanted to say, we really do need that big a pan. In the winter we empty it out daily. In the summer we eat about 2/3's of it each day. There are THREE of us, afterall! And the Big Oaf eats like a horse. (I think the Big Lazy Oaf is a Newfie mix, but she might be a Chow mix...who knows. Like every other dog our Spokeswoman has ever owned (except me), she is a rescue dog...plucked from the litter of a stray that was herself rescued just days before having her pups. The mother was a smallish dog and looked like a blue-heeler/shepherd mix. But Big Oaf, I mean GLORIA, didn't look anything like her mother, or like any of the other pups in the litter, for that matter. She was literally twice the size of all the other pups and was the only one that was long-haired and coal black. The mother and all the other pups were vigilant and aggressive...but Gloria was a laid back, slow moving, affable, lovable, couch potato, even then, who's only care in life was to seek out the next tummy rub. She hasn't changed much. She's just gotten about 100 pounds heavier, is all. But, even at that, she's not particularly overwieght...most of that is HAIR. She never seems to shed...just grows more and more hair.)

Before my time here, the other dogs (including my pal Shanachie who died last winter at the ripe age of 16 and a half) used to live on forty acres of heavily wooded land. They ran and ran and ran...roaming the full forty acres and hunting every day. They were all skinny back then. After they moved to town (not quite two years ago) the Big Oaf pretty well retired to her dog house (we seldom see her out in the yard) and the Half-crazed Border Collie put on a bit of weight. She was a bit out of shape when I joined the pack...but, I fixed that in short order! I put that Border Collie back to work. At first she was busy herding me and bossing me about, but, these days, I do the bossing and I keep her busy racing the fence line helping me guard our home from intruding squirrels, possums, birds, and wandering dogs. The squirrels keep us the busiest! She is fit and trim once more! So, we haven't had to weather having our food rationed. As long as we are running off whatever we eat, the Spokeswoman lets us eat as much as we want, whenever we want.

As to the Delusional Newfie mix (delusional because she THINKS she is a little lap dog!...She plops down in any and every available lap, every chance she gets, even in the Littlest Ninja's lap! She just doesn't comprehend that she is HUGE and NO ONE WANTS HER IN THEIR LAPS!)...anyway, as to the Delusional Dog, she probably could do with less food, but she has always been this size...even back in the days that Shanachie and Rivie (the half-crazed Border Collie) ran her legs off hunting the 40 acres...she was just born BIG.

While we are talking about FOOD, I have a question for everyone. The Half-crazed Border Collie tells me that before I came along, everyone got chicken bones all the time. The Spokeswoman's childhood dog (a small cocker-spaniel mix) lived to the ripe old age of 16 and a half eating chicken bones on an almost daily basis...as did my buddy, Shanachie (the golden/shepherd mix that was boss when I first joined the pack). Shanachie, too, lived to be sixteen and a half with never any problems from chicken bone consumption. The Delusional Newfie and the Half-Crazed Border Collie have been holding it against me that they no longer feast on chicken bones. I guess the Spokeswoman started withholding the chicken bones from every one after I joined the pack ten months ago. Does any one have any opinions on this matter?