My thoughts released; a mind set free |
Years back, my wife and I had a pair of Golden Retrievers. I had a female, Klarissa, who was about a year old when my wife got a six-week old male. The people we got him from bred and sold Golden Retrievers, but they had a runt that was being starved out and they didn't think they could sell him. My wife offered to take him and brought him home. Klarissa instantly adopted him and between the three of us nurtured him back to a healthy puppy. But, he would not eat any kind of dog food. So, we started making up home cooked foods for both of them after consulting with our vet and getting some recommendations on what we needed to insure good nutrition. The recipe included some vegetables, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and chicken or beef. Both dogs did very well on this diet, so we started making a large stock pot of food and dividing it up and freezing it so we would always have plenty of food for them on hand. One particular day, while this big kettle of food was simmering on the stove, two of our sons showed up. We visited for a while, but had to run into town and pick up a few things for dinner. We turned the heat off and let the kettle cool while we ran to do our shopping. The two adult sons stayed at the house with the dogs while we were gone, probably about a half hour to an hour at the most. When we got home, the dogs greeted us as usual and the two kids were watching a movie. It was past time for the dogs to eat, so my wife went to dish up some food for them before we divided the rest and stored it, but the pot was almost empty! She asked the kids if they had fed the dogs. "No, we didn't, but we helped ourselves to the kettle of stew on the stove, hope you don't mind." The look on their faces when my wife told them, "It's not stew, that's dog food!" After the initial shock, she added that it was made from regular food, but was a special recipe we had gotten from the vet for the dogs. They were relieved that it was "real" food and even asked for the recipe before they left. |