<p>lol, acollegestudent, you are going to make an awesome parent some day…I can see the organic homemade baby food posts now :D. I am laughing at myself, not you, I totally was like you are now with your dog with my kids’ food when they were babies.</p>
<p>What we all have in common here, regardless of the ways we do it, is that we are all dog lovers and are many ways blessed by the precious pooches in our lives :)</p>
<p>Hahahaaha, Yale mom 
</p>
<p>And I totally agree! Dogs are precious and amazing! In fact, my 60-pound pooch is snuggling under a blanket with me RIGHT NOW :D</p>
<p>Popped up on my pinterest feed this morning</p>
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<p>My dogs eat two different foods. Both are what they had been eating at their breeders. My food obsessed female eats a light version of Precise Foundation and my boy eats Holistic Select. Both get a spoon of cottage cheese with their food as well, since Archie’s breeder and Stella gets chopped carrots too…she is never satisfied. She gained weight in the first 6 months we had her so we curbed her back and her treats are veggies and an occasional " ice cookie " which is an ice cube :)</p>
<p>It’s my dog’s birthday today! She got a plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast.</p>
<p>I used to have total trust in our food supply (both human and animal) because two of my family members worked in quality control for food companies and I know how much testing goes into each product. Most of the companies seem to hold themselves to higher standards than required by the government. But the melamine contamination of pet food disaster that happened 5 or 6 years ago made me question how much we know about the ingredients in foods. The biggest surprise is that companies outsource so much of their formulation, and that one or two suppliers make products that end up in the majority of foods. I hope that companies now test each ingredient, but something like melamine was completely off the radar before the scandal.</p>
<p>P.S. I had a guinea pig for 8 years as a kid. He had free run of the house, and would follow us to the refrigerator squeaking loudly if the produce drawer was opened. He liked my mom best because she ate mostly salads!</p>
<p>We had a doggie sleepover last night. We’re watching our neighbors dog (our dogs bff) while her parents are away for a couple of days. It’s so darn cold out that we just brought her stuff over and she spent the night. She whined a little bit but then crept up on the sofa and fell asleep. She’s all settled in today! So much easier then running over three times a day to let her in and out.</p>
<p>My dog likes her ice treats too. If we get ice out of the fridge door, she’ll whine until she gets one. New people to our house are always so confused by this lol.</p>
<p>that’s funny ! when we met our boy as a puppy , it was still pretty hot and the breeder had him out of their deck with a big steel bowl filled with water and ice cubes. It was funny to see them all playing in it like kids in a wading pool. He still loves to play in a bowl full of ice , but not this time of year !</p>
<p>I feed my dog C&Ps Natural Ultramix Weight Management which is in acollege’s link. But since it’s dry food why will it cause cancer again? My vet suggested frozen vegetables to control weight gain but my dog refuses to eat it.</p>
<p>Our 14 year old jack Russell has the moist Benefil food mixed with brown rice and a little leftover chopped meat. I also give her a spoonful of canned pumpkin as a snack. It keeps her from getting constipated.</p>
<p>That What’s for Dinner at Your House thread has me thinking about investing in a crockpot. </p>
<p>It sure would be nice to come home once in a while after a long day at work, knowing that all I need to do is light the candles and pour the wine. However our two labs, 12 and 5 yrs old, are sweet loving devoted obedient wonderdogs when we are with them but fiendish marauding food snatching terrorists when we are out of the house. (Actually, we are seriously considering installing a nanny cam to see if they are both culprits, or only the younger chocolate lab, who is the one hiding upstairs when we come home to find a commando counter raid has occurred.) The upside of this behavior is that our counters are ALWAYS clean and clear, and I’m afraid that the fragrant presence of a crockpot full of braised short ribs (or whatever) would be an open invitation to all kinds of mayhem.</p>
<p>Have any of you devised a strategy for coexistence? (with apologies to those whose dogs would never dream of such bad behavior)</p>
<p>While we sadly no longer have either our dog or our crockpot, when we had both the crockpot was kept on the counter in our laundry room that was adjacent to our kitchen. Since we had lever style door handles which our dog quickly learned to open, we installed a slide bolt on the outside of the laundry room door just to make sure she couldn’t get inside to pull the crockpot down. After the third time of coming home to find the dog moping and whining by the laundry room door, I gave up using the crockpot. Dh said that knowing how it “tortured” him to smell the aroma of supper cooking for hours before he could dive into it, he thought it must be even more tantalizing to the dog. From then on the only thing we used the crockpot for was beans when we had a ham bone, and since no one in our family except dh found them appealing he cooked them in his garage.</p>
<p>3Trees,</p>
<p>The only thing I have found to deter our counter surfing terror of a golden (also the perfect angel when we are home) is to tie beer or soda cans to the desired object using fishing line. She has a fetish for potholders, and I always seem to forget to put them up (way up) before we leave in the morning. I loop the fishing line through about 4 or 5 cans and then tie the end to the potholder. The first time I did this I found the potholder and cans on the kitchen floor, near the counter. As long as she can see cans on the counter now, she won’t touch anything up there. She hates the sound of cans more than any other noise. We tried using shrieking magnet alarms and the sound didn’t bother her at all. I’m not sure if this would work with a young lab and a crock pot, probably too risky. As with your dog, I know immediately when I get home if she has been naughty. She smiles and wags her tail if she’s been good, and cowers with a hangdog face if she’s been bad-before she could possibly get any cue from my reaction. I’m not sure how psychologists define guilt, but dogs sure do a good imitation.</p>
<p>Our two goldens (what is it with labs and goldens?) do not counter surf. PLEASE do not believe fora second that they are well behaved due to obedience classes. Both dogs were rescues. The older one (13) was the most efficient counter surfer ever. Please do not confuse him the our first golden…she who ate a sofa, chairs and Ferragamos. He can no long jump on the counter. (We got him from another family who couldn’t control him.</p>
<p>Our other female we adopted from Golden Retreiver rescue. She was about 5 when we got her. She NEVER went up on a counter. The first few times she saw my older one jump, she began to shake. We suspect she was abused in her last home. </p>
<p>The worst thing our old gentleman stole? A three bone prime rib. Mr. Ellebud got into a tugging contest. (Please note: the prime rib was on top of the microwave not the counter.) My golden was so excited that while he never let go of the meat he drooled all over the floor. That in and other than a little messy didn’t begin to compare with the fact that he was so excited he began tugging AND peeing. Thats my baby.</p>
<p>Did I mention that we felt that we had to have either well behaved children (who are no longer children) or well behaved dogs. We chose well behaved kids.</p>
<p>Momsquad thanks for the cans suggestion. I have a small dog so I have no counter surfing problems but I might be able to use it in some other areas. My dog is as transparent as your golden. When we come home and his tail isn’t wagging, our first thought is, “Uh-oh, what did you do?”</p>
<p>I was totally spoiled by my first golden, The Perfect Dog. He would never THINK of counter-surfing. Did I ever learn fast when we got our rescue golden. She ate everything she could get: most of a pizza left unguarded, sticks of butter, and once an entire batch of Rum Butter truffle centers (a pound of chocolate, 8 oz of butter, heavy cream, and a third of a cup of dark navy rum). And the parchment paper they were resting on. She threw up 24 times. Chocolate vomit. All night.</p>
<p>She no longer does it, though. At some point she outgrew it. Or maybe it was the trauma of the truffle incident. :D</p>
<p>If your dogs are that persistent, I’d plug in the crock pot on top of the fridge, or in another room with a door you can close. That is, unless you have those lever handles that dogs can open.</p>
<p>Omg Consolation, whenever I see your name on this thread I know it’s going to be another wild story!!! I think the top of the fridge is a great idea (with an extension cord). Also like the cans idea. </p>
<p>My Mil puts open sheets of newspapers on her couches when she leaves because the dogs don’t like to lie on them and it keeps them off the furniture.</p>
<p>But newsprint stains material. Unless the couches are sealed with plastic…</p>
<p>Quite true, even my fingers and palms get all smudged…unless it is USA Today.</p>
<p>ellbud, I love your dog stories. I can just see that tug-of-war! </p>
<p>When I was a kid, we had an Irish Setter that stole pies from a six foot shelf where they’d been placed “out of reach”. He also made his way out onto a porch roof - he’d heard my dad visiting with a neighbor and thought he’d push his way through a screen to see what Dad was up to. Fortunately he didn’t leap off. Another time, Dad had him out in the yard; he’d looped the leash to his lawn chair. Dad got up and the dog followed. The chair folding up behind him startled him and he ran. The more noise the chair made, the faster he ran. Irish Setters can run a long time. Up and down the street, all of our neighbors watching. Finally he hid from the vicious lawn chair under our VW Bug parked out front. </p>
<p>He was a great dog.</p>