It’s true, he eats only healthy foods.
Just the other day I was spending some time out at my manspace on my dock on the Spring Creek at Sherwood Ranch. My dog Bowie was following me around. He always stays close by. Wherever I go, he goes. Except for riding in the golf cart. He doesn’t do that very well unless gagged and bound.
He’s named after Alamo hero Jim Bowie. And yes, it’s a Texas thang.
He’s an $800 rescue dog. We got him from the pound in San Angelo for $35. He turned out to have parvo and stayed a couple of weeks at the vet’s office. He is part Heeler and part Basset. If I hadn’t seen his little short legged brothers and sisters at the pound, I wouldn’t have believed the Basset part. He’s pretty long legged. He’s a medium size dog, about 40-45 lbs. Runs full speed with his nose to the ground when he’s huntin’ armadillos. That’s the hound dog part of him. Other than that, he looks kinda like a barrel chested, spotted bird dog. ‘Cept for his ears. He can’t decide what to do with his ears.
After a while down on the dock, I noticed Bowie was eating algea. It kinda creeps up into a corner of my dock and is slimy and he scratches at it so he can get more than just a mouthful. It kinda strings along behind him when he walks away. Gulp, gulp, gulp and it’s down the hatch for the slime string of algae.
My reaction? Good dog! He knows that algae is good for you.
Ramona’s reaction? She was totally grossed out.
Isn’t algea supposed to be good for you? Don’t the health conscious Japanese eat algea. (Ramona made me stop saying japs and other ethnic slurs since she is one of those ethnic people).
Isn’t algae sold in health food stores along with shark cartilage and other health food items? Isn’t all that stuff sort of good for you?
So, for a fleeting moment, I was proud of my dog Bowie.
Then I remembered that the day before, he was sort of choking on something when he came up to my downstairs office door and I pried a baby bird out of the back of his throat. And before that he ate a whole glob of freshly mowed grass that had clumped up into one spot. And just before that he ate a moldy black pecan laying in the driveway. Oh, and then there was the piece of hard plastic I pulled out of his mouth. Turned out to be an old shotgun shell. And there was the plastic bag the newspaper came wrapped in.
Then there was the glass rain gauge tube I found half eaten in his mouth. And the little plastic pebbles in the toy fish Ramona had bought for him. And all the bark off a rather large limb laying out in the yard.
Maybe I was premature in thinking he was a health nut.
Then again he just might be health conscious. I can’t decide. He ate some marigolds. Are they healthy?
He walked in the gate of my pepper garden like you walk into the front door of the grocery store. He went down a row of banana peppers, picked out one he liked and gently plucked it right off the plant, took it into the driveway, and made a meal of that pepper. Then he did the same thing with a jalapeno. Except he was saved when Ramona’s little sissy dog, Starbucks, stole it from him and took a big bite. Starbucks will never eat another pepper.
I wish Bowie had eaten it. Then I could call him Senor Bowie.
Just now he ate a piece of Pecos cantaloupe. He knows they are the best. He ate the bugs off the license plate of my pickup and part of a 2×4 I had just cut. I guess I’m gonna stop feedin’ him that expensive dog food and switch over to scraps from my workshop…..old nails, snails, and puppy dog tails. Then he grabbed a lump of charcoal out of a bag under my workbench and ate that. Must have had an upset stomach.
He doesn’t really know what to do with the chickens. Our old dog , Stars, actually ate a chicken or two. Bowie just wants ’em back in the pen. He circles around ’em stares ’em down, and herds the dern things back in their chicken coop. I did see him with Little Joe the rooster in his mouth, but he wasn’t eating him. I guess Little Joe was just stubborn and Bowie picked him up and took him around to the gate. Plop, dropped him right in the gate amongst all the squawkin’ chickens. Little Joe is minus a few tailfeathers, but other than that, he’s ok.
Bowie ate the feathers.
Everybody needs a dog like mine. A real health conscious dog that loves natural organic foods.
I’m David
Considerin’ a change in diet
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Bad Bowie! I didn’t know you were eating so many different bad things! I guess I’ll just have to feed you better! I’ll cook you special food….Do you like Roast Beef and Mashed Potatoes?
Dogs have a special place in the hearts of Real Texans. I guess that makes them Real Texas Dogs. I currently have a 2 year old Blue Lacy named Lucy. Lacy’s are, as of a couple of Legislative sessions ago, the Texas State Dog. They were initially bred on the Lacy Ranch near Lampassas in the middle 1800’s. They are a herding dog and the initial breeding was a cross between a sight hound, a scent hound and a coyote. I have had a gazillion dogs since I was a kid and she is by far the smartest one I’ve ever had, and I swear she knows what I am saying most of the time. It’s a little scary, cuz I know she is way smarter than me. Now that could mean that I am getting stupider as I age, but I choose to believe that she is just that smart. Prior to Lucy, I had a pair of Blue Tick hounds [brother and sister from the same litter] — Willie and Pearl. Now Willie and Pearl both had drinking problems. Pearl would only drink wine and an occasional last drop or two of Jack Daniels — there weren’t many of those cuz I usually didn’t leave much. Willie on the other hand was a beer drinker. Wine and whiskey made him sneeze. He got to drinking quite a bit and my bride, Jan, was pretty sure that I was killing him so she made me ask the vet about it. I did, and he said well, Willie weighs about 100 pounds — I wouldn’t let him have more than a 6-pack a week.
My favorite post to date.