Determination

Abbie and I were walking through the alley behind the grocery store this morning. She likes walking there because it gives her a chance to flirt with the employees who are standing around on break and maybe get some affection.

She ducked her head down and stopped to sniff something that looked like the sole of an old boot.

But it wasn’t a boot sole or any other part of a boot. It was, rather, a huge hunk of dirt-coated, well-aged roast beef. Who knows how it got there? Fell out of the trash? Got dropped when the food bank van came for a pick-up? Abbie did not care. Today was the luckiest day of her life, as far as she was concerned.

She began to hoover the nasty old meat down, pretty much without chewing. I was yelling “Put that down!” as she attempted to swallow the thing whole, knowing I was going to try to stop her.

I grabbed her face. I tried to pry her jaws open. They were clamped shut like a bear trap. I put my finger in front of her nose, assuming that if I had my mouth full and someone stopped my nose up, I would open my mouth, and if it worked for me, it would work for her.

Wrong. She was not giving up. She glared up at me. She had the Eye of the Tiger. She clamped down even harder. She even growled a little.

I determined not to let her eat some spoiled alley meat. I grabbed onto as much of it as I could and pulled. She pulled back. I was suddenly locked in a game of Alley Meat Tug-of-War.

Do you know how hard it is to hang onto a greasy meat flap when your 60-pound dog is fighting for the right to party with some delicious chow, especially when you don’t really want to have your hands full of greasy spoiled meat?

We tugged and pulled. She kept gaining on me. She wasn’t going to let her prize go without a fight.

Finally, I conceded. The dog had me beat. 1.4 seconds later, the nasty hobo meat was in her belly and I was wondering what the hell I should wipe my hand on (for the record, there was nothing. I let Abbie lick my hand and called it clean).

I spent the day waiting for the inevitable consequences, the volcano of badness spewing from one end of my dog or the other. But guess what? Nothing! I guess all that hard training she has put in eating cat poop every day has strengthened her system.

Tell me again why I waste my money on that premium grain-free dog food?