Lucky dogs

'Way back in August, I wrote a post about how our dogs take a dietary supplement called Dino-Vite that has helped them enormously with their skin allergies. Dino-Vite claims to provide them with digestive enzymes that a cooked out of their dog food, due to the high temperatures at which it is processed. Those digestive enzymes are necessary for their health, the good folks at Dino-Vite claim, because eliminating them from a dog's diet makes the dog less able to fight off the skin allergies that make their lives miserable with the constant itching, digging, biting and scratching.

Not to mention the stinking, which presumably doesn't bother the dog as much as it bothers the people whom with they live. Like, say, me. Just as a for instance.

So Wimzie and Hershey have been having their Dino-Vite every day. It is expensive, but it is worth it. The endless digging and scratching and biting and writhing have stopped. The only problem is that they hate the taste. If you would happen to give them a bowl of dog kibble with the Dino-Vite powder sprinkled on it, they would look at you with expressions that indicated that you must be out of your freakin' mind to think they were going to eat that crap.

This drives my husband absolutely mad. "They're DOGS," he says firmly. "They aren't allowed to be picky eaters. Give them the dry food with the Dino-Vite and they'll eat it when they're hungry."

It's all well and good for him to say this, because he's not the one at home all day with the dogs, hearing their little whimpering cries as they look at their food dishes; seeing their furry cheeks all sucked in, their eyes like four holes burned in a blanket.

"You baby them too much," he said. "You have to be firm with them. They're DOGS."

That's what he thinks.

So for their next meal, I combined their dry food and the Dino-Vite with a little evaporated milk. They yum-yummed the food down in record time. So I've taken to buying two cans of evaporated milk every week at the grocery.

Yesterday, I noticed that the dogs were snarfing down their food with even greater alacrity than they usually show. They weren't so much eating as they were inhaling. Strange, I thought. They must be extra-hungry for some reason.

This morning when I came downstairs, the girls had already fed the dogs. There were two completely-licked-clean bowls on the kitchen floor. This is very unusual, because they usually leave a little Dino-Vite around the edges. I picked up the bowls to wash them and immediately stuck my sleeve in a little bit of the evaporated milk one of the girls had spilled on the sink's edge. Only, it wasn't liquid-y, like evaporated milk usually is. It was viscous, sticky. Suspicious, I leaned down to smell it. Just as I expected, it smelled sweet.

Last night and this morning, Wimzie and Hershey were treated to a dinner and breakfast of Eagle Brand Milk -- sweetened, condensed milk I generally use for making fudge and Neiman Marcus cake and the like-- instead of the EVAPORATED milk they usually have.

No wonder they were so hungry. Heck, I'd probably eat dry dog food and Dino-Vite if it had half a can of Eagle Brand Milk poured over it.

"GIIIIRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLZZZZZZZ!!!" I shrieked.