Chapter Twenty-Six: My brief foray into responsible pet ownership. Part Three.

Read Part One here
Read Part Two here.

by now, the boys had a wide array of pills and powders added to their daily kibble. on the advice of Lo, usually in consultation with dr. heather, they now took:

Prozyme to aid in digestion

fish oil pills to keep cancer at bay and to keep their coats glossy

probiotic powder, i forget exactly why, but for another digestive reason, i believe

COq10 to aid in heart functions (boscoe had had a little heart murmur diagnosed, which terrified me--that was how toby's fatal heart disease had started.)

cosequin, to help with joint problems

and boscoe also got a half-scoop of vita-flex crystals once a day, to help stave off arthritis (common after surgeries of his sort).

they also got a dollop of pumpkin, and sometimes one of plain yogurt, after dinner.

kibble alone doesn't give them everything they need, lo said. the haunting memories of toby's last year were enough to make me listen. i could tell that i was going to have to give raw meat a go at some point. it made sense, the dogs loved it, i knew it was healthful, and i kept running into people who fed their dogs this way.

when i struck up a conversation with a stout, mom-ish middle-aged woman at the dogpark who told me that she belonged to a raw-meat-buying cooperative that met in the parking lot of the Northtown Mall once a month to divvy up organically raised, free-range turkey meat for their dogs, i knew this was no longer a fringe operation. i was behind the times!

that day at work, i stopped by Lo's desk. "ok," i said. "how, exactly, do i do this?"

she suggested a combination of meat--say, turkey mixed with chicken--and what she calls "veggie slop." "i just throw whatever leftover veggies i have into the cuisinart and grind it up," she said. "add a tablespoon of cider vinegar. put about a tablespoon or two of slop into their food each time."

her middle dog, Bailey, had broken a tooth chowing down on a raw bone, and ever since then lo had been grinding the fresh chicken wings and turkey necks in a meat grinder. she suggested that i do this, too.

like any endeavor, this one was going to require a bit of outlay at the beginning. i didn't own a cuisinart, for one thing. nor did i have organic cider vinegar. nor did i usually have a bunch of leftover vegetables lying around in the crisper. nor did i have a meat grinder. she said she'd bring me in her mini-cuisinart to use until i got one of my own. she'd also supply me with some organic cider vinegar. but for the other stuff, i was on my own.

i trudged home that night and fired up the computer. as i trolled the web looking for good deals on meat grinders, i was filled with questions.

how was i going to keep all this stuff fresh? kibble can lie around in a sack in the basement for weeks with no harm. but fresh chicken? would i have to grind chicken wings every night? if i froze the stuff, where would i put it? our freezer was already packed pretty full of essentials such as Amy's Pizzas and Blue Bunny ice cream. no room for enough chicken wings to feed two large dogs for a month.

boscoe padded into the room and looked at the screen hopefully. on display at amazon.com was an array of meat grinders. one step at a time, sweetie, he said.

i grumbled, but i clicked on "buy."

TO BE CONTINUED