The Food Groups

One day last week, after eating cereal for breakfast, I placed the bowl in the sink to be washed later. To be honest, I thought about pouring the remaining milk into Zack’s bowl, but decided against it. It’s hard to remember what people food is good for the dog’s digestive system.

Zack came home this time from the trainer pretty lean and mean. He is treated well, and fed well, but it’s been a heavy bird hunting season, and our boy did inherit that running gene. Andy, our trainer, gives Zack “hot” feed when he’s training, insuring high energy and stamina. When it was time to bring Zack home, even our trainer was worried about him. He had lost a little bit of weight – and hunting dogs tend to lean anyway. Andy encouraged us to give Zack plenty of “gravy and biscuits.” We took Zack to the vet for his checkup, and all was well – Zack just needed some rest and a little fattening up.

The countertops in our kitchen are pretty high. And since we’ve started occasionally augmenting Zack’s food with some biscuits and gravy, he now thinks it’s okay to put his front feet on the countertop to check out whatever it is we’re cooking up (for him. Surely, we are cooking for him, right?).

It. Is. Not. Okay. To. Do. That. Ever.

ZAAAAAACCCCKKKKKK! BACK! BACK!

Back to the cereal for breakfast part. I put the bowl in the deep sink. An inch or two of milk remained in the bottom of the bowl.

I went to get into the shower. A second later, the pocket door to the bathroom slid open, and a liver-colored head poked in, as usual. I said, “What’s up, Zack? Need a shower?” I turned around to look at the boy, and started laughing.

From the tip of his nose, to the top of his ears, there were a million milk droplets. When I could finally breathe, I took a towel and wiped him off. I trekked back into the kitchen, and tried to figure out the geometry of Zack’s actions. As big as Zack is, getting the milk out of the bowl would have been a stretch. High counter. Deep sink. Low milk level.

We always laugh at Zack when he yawns, because he does the classical “Snoopy” yawn…his mouth opens wide, his very long tongue extends waaaaaay out of his mouth, and then does that little curly up thing.

The milk level in the bowl looked unchanged. Zack must have been just able to reach the milk with the very tip of his tongue, thus the beautiful milk artwork displayed on his head. He looked up at me, with that goofy grin of his, “Did I do good, Mom?”

And, yes, I caved.

I poured the remainder into his dog food – because…well, you know the drill.

Milk. It does a body good.