I just served up dinner for Dane the Mangy Rescue Mutt and had to laugh. He was, as usual, beside himself with anticipation, and even more so because he saw me place the core of the apple I’d just been eating into his bowl before scooping his dog food in on top of it.
Apple cores have become a serious problem in our household, so much so that we can no longer eat an apple at all if Dane is near enough to hear the crunch. We have to put him in a bedroom, or outside, or in the garage, because he has overactive salivary glands and, when stimulated, they produce enough drool to solve a small municipal water crisis.
And for some reason nothing…I repeat, nothing…stimulates his glands like an apple core. Go figure. It’s not so bad with popcorn or miscellaneous kitchen scraps. He doesn’t do it for chicken skin, carrot ends, squash rinds, browned lettuce (lettuce!) or any of the other produce whittlings that I toss him while cooking. But an apple core…a fucking apple core…triggers something in his perpetually starving little imagination that sends us into hazmat suits.
So we attempt retraining. We no longer give him apple cores from our hands, right after the last bite. No ho. We take them out to the garage and place them into his out-of-reach dog bowl to be incorporated with his next meal. We’re determined to teach him the value of delayed gratification no matter how much he dislikes the concept and, even though his dragging body/droop eared/tragic-eyed reproach is disconcerting, I think we’re making progress.
He dines in the garage and only in the garage. Today’s dinner consisted of said apple core and dry kibbles with a spoonful of digestive enzyme powder dumped in a clump and then a generous drizzle of stinking salmon oil over all. He gazed at me in adoration as I slopped it all together, prancing around and shaking his head a few times to make sure all the long drool tendrils wrapped firmly around his face and then, once I set the bowl down, offered up a small puddle of slime oblations to the garage floor while waiting for the actual command to eat.
He always does this. Always. I don’t know why it struck me as so funny today but it did. Sometimes I have to shake my head and wonder why we love these ridiculous, slobbering, undignified creatures…who lick themselves and eat each other’s shit no less…so much, but there you have it. Their disgusting habits even endear them to us…which is so weird I can’t even think about it.
But really, what in the world would I ever do without this guy?
copyright Dia Osborn 2013
The Odd and Unmentionable 
Oh he is a keeper!! Bless you Dia!!
Adorable!!!!!!! Almost the same thing with our dog too. Loves apples!
However, just thought I’d drop a note that apple cores are highly toxic to dogs (I think it’s the seeds?). Dogs shouldn’t eat seeds (so no peach seeds either). Very dangerous, worse than chocolate. But they can eat the actually fleshy part!
I didn’t realize that about apple seeds although I’ve investigated peach pits. We have a peach tree in the backyard and Dane feasts on windfall peaches throughout the season to the point where sometimes his poop is mostly the pits. (No pun intended.) He’s never shown any bad effects, even when the hard shell came apart and he ingested the soft inner seed. Here’s a breakdown of the amount of amygdalin (cyanide) in each soft pit.
http://www.drgourmet.com/askdrgourmet/peachpits.shtml#.UR0LGaXU7zI
Evidently apple seeds have less amygdalin than peach pits and, unless they’re chewed (which is difficult for a dog), they don’t release much, if any, of it due to the hard shells. The number of seeds that would have to be chewed up enough to release the toxin in harmful amounts is huge. I spent an hour online trying to find any studies or anecdotal reports on the number of pets injured from eating fruit pits/pips and couldn’t find anything. If you know of any specific cases I’d be really grateful!
oh WOW thanks for looking into this! I I had heard that from my vet so I never did the research on my own, but I am certainly impressed with what you did. Well my dog will be happy for your work, as he will now get more of the apple! Thank you!!!!
Now that I’ve met the infamous Dane, I can imagine the slimy shower that could escape those big loose lips! Yuk! 😉
I spent the rest of the afternoon on my knees scrubbing slime drips off the floor, then giving him a bath and subsequently cleaning his hair off of every surface in the house. You didn’t see him at his worst, but close!