Living With Farmer H Is No Treat

Just ask the dogs! Technically, they'd say, "Living with Farmer H is no TREATS!" Yeah, they're not good with subject-verb agreement. They're DOGS! Throw them a bone for being able to talk, why don't you?

You might recall that somewhere, sometime, I told Farmer H recently that there was no need to set out cat kibble in the roaster pan on the shelf on the porch, what with our last cat having gone to live on a farm upstate. That open kibble is a squirrel banquet. And that Farmer H agreed, and said he'd leave it in the garage, in a lidded plastic wastebasket, for me to dip out with a small non-stick saucepan when treating the dogs every day on my way to town. Oh, and he said it was about empty anyway, and he'd get some more.

In fact, Farmer H even sent me a text last week, saying he was buying my dogs treats. That was odd. I wondered if maybe he'd found a deal on actual dog treats. Like maybe some Milkbones or Snausages. When they didn't appear, I figured that had been his way of saying he was picking up a bag of cat kibble.

Imagine my surprise when I took the lid off that garage garbage can and found DRY DOG FOOD PELLETS!

What in the Not-Heaven? WHY would you buy dogs some regular dog food and pretend it's a treat when you give it to them? I don't know about your average everyday dog, but my dogs were having none of that!

They gamboled rambunctiously, Juno shouldering out Jack to get closest to me as I hobbled down the porch steps, holding onto the rail with both hands. She hopped over Jack like a circus poodle jumping through hoops. Back and forth, in anticipation as I tried to pet their moving heads, on my way to the garage door. Whined and whimpered with excitement upon hearing the lid come off that trash can. Juno even jumped down onto the sidewalk, and stuck her head into the garage to make sure I was not making a getaway without treating her.

As I started out the door with the saucepan, rattling the dry dog food pellets, optimistic that dogs are dogs, and will scarf up anything at least partially edible, and some things not... Juno and Jack stood at their respective treat-receiving areas, wriggling with joy. I shook out a little hill of dry dog food pellets in front of each of them. It was not well-received. 

Remember on Diff'rent Strokes, when Gary Coleman as Arnold would get that look on his face, and say to Todd Bridges as Willis: "WHATCHU TALKIN' 'BOUT, WILLIS?" That's how the dogs looked at me. They didn't actually SAY anything. They were saving vocalization for the "Living with Farmer H is no TREATS!" line, once I explained what was going on.

Imagine, if you will, that every day you get a handful of forbidden cat kibble, a tasty mixture of pink and orange and yellow Xs and Os and fish shapes, sprinkled at your feet, and then out of the blue, some brown pressed disks of dog food are dumped in front of you out of a non-stick saucepan.

My dogs are eternal optimists. They still frolic with hopeful abandon when I come out. Then sink to the depths of despair when I shake out the dry dog food pellets. Only Copper Jack shows interest. He even puts his muzzle into the pan before I can pour it out.

Copper Jack likes the pan that feeds him.