ruminations on dogs

So we are going to be accepting a challenge to become vegetarians for 21 days on Sept. 6th. Since I knew we were going to be doing this (and yes, John knows. He actually suggested we go vegetarian for a week, so I know he is good for that amount of time) and Von's was having a sale on rib-eye, I decided to buy some at a good price. What does this have to do with our akita, Kit kat, you ask? I broiled them, and after John finished his (and yes, he chewed it down to the bone, so I guess he must have enjoyed it quite a bit) he gave the cooked bone to Kit kat, who promptly devoured as much of it as she could in as little time as possible. That was Thurs. On Fri. when she went out on her 1st walk of the day, she apparently had some digestive upset (this was told to me by Leo). On her early afternoon walk, she again had some problems. We left to go run some errands while John took an afternoon nap. He awoke to the dog, ahem, as he so aptly put it, "she exploded all over the carpet", which thankfully was a bit of an exaggeration. We ended up throwing out a small rug that was not salvageable, and used up some woolite carpet cleaner on the bit that got on the regular rug.

When we got home, she promptly went into barfing mode, whereupon we rushed her outside. She puked and then squatted some more. Ugh. Poor thing! A few hours later, she had the dry heaves from both ends.

What have I learned from this? No cooked bones and be extra careful with what we feed her. On the boat this would have been a disaster. Here on land, plenty of room to throw her outside. I take that back. On the boat, we would have thrown her on deck and cleaned it off with a bucket of salt water, but still... I am glad that we found out that she is not to be given bones here than on there!

I think about the boat about 10 times a day. What will we do when at anchor? How will school go? Can I fit some stuff on the Nook? What should we take as far as art supplies? What kind of vegetarian meals will I be making there on the boat in Central America? Who will we meet? How long will we be gone?

But lastly, what kind of dog food will I be able to find in the markets? (sighing and shaking my head ruefully)