Yesterday, I roasted a 5.5 pound chicken.
Leo had a drumstick and I had a little piece of the breast. It was too hot to put in the fridge so I tucked it far back on the counter while we ran a quick errand.
In particular, I picked up some tortillas, salsa, avocado and cheese to make some roasted chicken soft tacos for dinner. Sounds nice, huh?
I can only imagine how this all went down. The little guy must have leaped 4 feet off the ground, snapping as far into the counter as he could, until he got ahold of the dish the chicken was on. The dish was on the floor. The garlic cloves that were in the cavity were everywhere. There was a small piece of breast left and the boy had it in his mouth, a couple discarded ribs littered the floor and pretty much nothing else. D-dog looked pregnant and absolutely as happy with life as an overstuffed dog could be. Panda was hiding in another room and Thea was licking the grease off the floor.
To top it all off, the boy piddled all over the living room, later that evening and Leo had to get up 3 times to let him out, during the night.
Dogs are fricken awesome.
He's feeling fine today.
The moral of the story? Darwin may look small but there is no spot in the kitchen that he can't reach if the smells are good enough. Also, it's impossible for me to stay mad at a cute dog.
""Thea was licking the grease off the floor.""
i'm sorry; i laughed.
I feel your pain. My two boys are professional counter-surfers. Reggie ate a pound of butter once. Another time Jake drank all the deep-fry grease out of the dutch oven... The only places we can leave food are A) on top of the refrigerator or B) tucked back inside the oven.
Sorry but I had to laugh. Many years ago my mother's German Shepard ate the remains of a 5 lb sirloin of beef roast under almost identical circumstances. We had eaten maybe a half pound (probably less) & the rest was supposed to be for my husband's lunches for the rest of the week. At least Darwin had the good grace to look guilty - unlike my mother's dog.
Chappy was a counter-surfer when he was a puppy (until we finally trained OURSELVES out of the habit of leaving food on the counter), but the worst he ever got was an entire container of double-chocolate cookies that we had bought that day and eaten 2 of. Since they were chocolate, we called two different emergency vets. They both asked the same questions and then one (the farther away one) said to rush him over to induce vomiting. The one that was closer said not to worry but maybe to expect some diarhhea. To this day, the disparity between diagnoses off of the exact same information amazes me.
(Oh, we ended up splitting the difference--I gave him hydrogen peroxide to cause him to throw up all the cookies in his stomach and then just didn't worry about what had gotten further into the digestive system. He was kind of queasy for the rest of the night, poor boy!)
Hope Darwin enjoyed his, um, treat! Love smart Panda, though--I had NOTHING to do with this! And older-sister Thea, helping to clean up the mess.
Now that he's definitely ok this just makes me laugh and laugh. Don't you wish you had a hidden camera? ha. I wish I could say that my dog would be like Panda in this situation, but that would be a BIG LIE. When I told Jacob about good ol' Darwin he said "oh man, Charlie would have done the same thing. He'd have eaten the lemon out of the middle and everything." ha!
I saw it coming as soon as you said it was too hot for the fridge.
My mom's dog was an expert. She could open pizza boxes in seconds.
Thank you for the insane laughter.:-)
Wow. At least Darwin had the courtesy to look guilty!
I have two counter surfing dogs. When I want to put food out of their reach it goes in the oven or the dishwasher. I am screwed if they figure out how to open either one of those.
Oh dear, oh dear.... that'll teach you. We've learned the same lesson on more than one occasion - it's easily forgotten. Worst one was a lovely beef joint that we'd just had a tiny bit from and planned several more meals from (and it was Bil not Lunil). It's amazing how they survive the stuffing of things that are 'bad' for them. I just love Panda's and Thea's reactions.
I once had a similar experience with two kitties and a half-carved turkey. I left the turkey on the counter while having dinner with my guests, planning the finish carving after eating. Now I put anything like a turkey in the microwave with the door closed if I'm not actually in the kitchen supervising.
at least chicken makes sense. last night my cats ate my cast-iron skillet baked cornbread. Cornbread! who knew that cats like cornbread.
My in-laws had Dobermans over the years, and one was notorious for that kind of stuff. She ate entire loaves of bread (BAG AND ALL), cantaloupe, underwear and socks, wads of toilet paper... One of their current dogs (a standard poodle) will eat nonfood items, let it roll around in his tummy for a couple days, and then will vomit them back up. We lost some doll clothes that way.
Yes, I've been there. I know this story well. My greyhounds are just tall enough that with little effort they can reach whatever they want on the counter. Fortunately they don't do this often. Just often enough I never seem to get in the habit of putting the food in the microwave or oven to keep it secure.
I know they know better but I can't help but think they know nothing truly bad will happen to them so they take it and just ask for forgiveness later. Part of me loves that they feel so secure in my love. The other part of me is just grumpy!
By the way, 2 pepto or imodium will take care of the "results" from stealing food. I never run out of these in this house. Oh no.