We feed our dog pumpkin. Yes, that’s right, I said it – my BFF and I feed our dog pumpkin. It seems that our Coton de Something-or-other has a sensitive stomach and likes to regurgitate on occasion, which, at the start, had the both of us worried. One vet prescribed a low-residue diet with this canned, dog food that even I thought was gross. Milo wouldn’t eat it, and after he started to lose more weight we went to a witch-doctor vet, I mean, a more holistic vet, who gave us a blow-chunks-by-blow-chunks explanation of the difference between a dog vomiting and a dog regurgitating (pretty much the difference is if your dog wants to eat it back up it’s regurgitation, if not it’s vomit), why they sometimes do it, and that rather than invade his little body with scopes and surgery at the present time, we should put him on a diet of cooked, ground turkey mixed with pumpkin, in addition to some dietary supplements. Me, I was skeptical, but after our cooking turkey for the umpteenth time, having Milo actually look forward to our shoving a pill down his throat, and constantly having the grocery store clerk look at us in a weird way as we came through the check-out line with three pounds of ground turkey and three cans of Libby’s pumpkin, it occurred to us that the regurgitations episodes had drastically slowed, Milo’s weight was back to normal, and instead of dreading meal-time, the little dude was back to his normal, spinning self. Happily we weened him off of the ground turkey we had to cook and found a “dog store” variety that is precooked, and mixed with the pumpkin all seems to be well, except, well, when I went into the cabinets this morning to get a fresh can of pumpkin. To my dismay we were out of pumpkin, so this morning I gave Milo the plain turkey, and he looked at me like “Hey, you’re missing something here!” I apologized to him and promised that dinner would bring the orange-ey goodness that he has grown to love.
At first I wasn’t that worried even though, the night before, at the local Jewel grocery store, I went to buy some extra cans of pumpkin, but wouldn’t you know it, they were out. The thing is they have been out of pumpkin for over a week now, but I had some errands to run this morning so I figured I would stop by another Jewel. I get to the cooking isle, and there, on the bottom shelf, where pumpkin normally would be, again is an empty shelf. “What is going on here?” “Is this some kind of pumpkin shortage?” “Milo’s going to kick my ass when I get home.” “What about anyone who might want to make a pumpkin pie?” So many thoughts were going through my head, but predominantly was the simple one of “How does not one, but two Jewel grocery stores be out of Libby’s canned pumpkin, especially with today being the autumnal equinox and all?”
So now, on my way home, I am on a quest. I suppose I’ll hit the Dominick’s first, although their prices are higher on the Libby’s pumpkin, but hope they at least have a couple of cans to tide us through the Jewel pumpkin shortage. If not Dominick’s, I suppose I’ll hit Wal-Mart after that, but I really hate to shop at Wal-Mart for my inherent fear of getting run over by an old person in a motor scooter, but if even the local Wal-Mart is out of pumpkin I’ll really be worried, and not just for Milo, but for pumpkin-pie makers everywhere. Here’s to good luck on my quest!