Mr Hippo has now been crashing at our pad for a full week.  I think he’s getting used to his new digs.  He is out sunning himself on the stoop right now, which is his favorite things to do on sunny Phoenix afternoons.  Plus, he’s pretty content because he just gorged his skinny self on his first homemade doggie meal.  I need to do some reading to figure out the proper ratios of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates he’ll need for long term health, but this was just an experimental dish to see how it would go.  And to see how it would, you know, go through him.  I know a lot of doggies get stomach issues when their diets are changed, but this guy has been very regular despite a couple different kinds of canned food donated from the neighbors, some veggie and fruit snacks, and a previous diet that seemed to alternate between both dry and canned food, according to the neighbor who knew his family.  Here’s hoping Hippo’s unstable past has given him a stomach able to cope with pretty much anything.  Surely, surely, his neglected little stomach will love dishes like these?

Looks good enough to eat, right?

That’s kind of the point, after all.

Welcome to the Blue Plate Special, Mr Hippo.  The blue plate itself is on loan from the generous neighbor that belongs to Chica.  Since Chica is officially giant now (though a lot of Chica is fur, to be fair), he’s lent us various and sundry relics of her puppyhood, such as her food and water bowls, her kennel, her old collar (too big for Hippo), and a leash. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy my neighbors?  I really do.

Anywho, today’s Blue Plate Special features some brown rice, turkey, kidney beans, a few peas, a couple leaves of spinach, some grated carrots and zucchini, and a splash of broth.  Period.  Hippo was very excited about it, as you can see in the pictures below.

Nom nom nom.

“Mom, I-I-I don’t know how to thank you…  Does this mean you really think I am a good dog?”

“I love you.  I really, really do.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to this before it gets cold…”

Nom nom nom.
“Hey, rice!  Get back here!”

“No, I swear, there must be a little more here somewhere that I spilled or something…”

“My goodness.  I seem to have made a mess of myself.  OOOH!  TURKEY-FLAVORED FUR!”

Sorry about the graininess of some of the photos, but you have to admit: That’s the face of a happy dog.  Now we’ll just see how he does with it overall, and how he handles changes in his meals.  I’m excited because after he ate this meal, he actually, almost-sort-of-kinda played with me for about two seconds.  He’s not so versed in playful puppy ways (as in, at all), but he kind of bit at the string on his polar bear (the white lump in the picture above) and swatted at two or three times it when I made it dance on his stomach.  Before today, he has only stared up at me mournfully whenever I have tried to tempt him to play…even when the bear has danced a little jig on his head.  While the food and the play attempt might not be connected, I think it all means that we’re still making progress.

To wrap up, I wanted to mention how a lot of the principles I use when making food and planning meals for myself and the Unicyclist also apply when I try to figure out the dog food for Hippo.  Obviously, we’re also feeding him whole, natural foods.  However, making dog dishes also helps me in my efforts to use up some of my kitchen odds and ends and not waste anything.  When I parboiled the potatoes and squash for kabobs the other day, I saved the boiling water and kept it for watering down his food (at first, he refused to drink anything, so we started watering down his food a little to make sure he was getting hydrated).  Not only does this ensure the water isn’t just dumped down the sink, but it gives him a little extra nutrient boost that plain water doesn’t provide. When I boiled the turkey necks yesterday for his food, I made sure to save that broth as well.  I even popped a container in the freezer to save for later.

As an aside: The turkey necks were a challenge for me.  Prior to last night, there has never been meat in this home during the whole time that we’ve lived here.  And I haven’t handled raw meat, chopped it, hacked through bone, or peeled it off the bone, cooked, in…a really, really long time.  The turkey necks, filled with vertebra, were a bit more graphic than I was totally comfortable with, as was the heavy turkey smell that filled the house after hours of boiling the necks.  Handling the turkey necks also confirmed that I can’t successfully feed Hippo a raw diet, as I just don’t have it in me to listen to him crunch the bones.  (Yes, I tried.)  As I said, we will most likely continue to feed him some meat, but it’s not going to be a huge thing, methinks.  It’s funny; the ethical questions of consuming animals were not really the driving force behind my vegetarianism.  However, the longer I go without exposing myself to meat on a regular basis, the more troubling it is to actually handle it myself.  We’ll experiment to see how healthy Hippo is on a vegetarian diet, and how he does when he has the occasional bits of meat.  He was really into the turkey, but he may prove to be a boddhisattva at heart.  Who can say?  While a pet’s diet needs to be something the pet’s people are comfortable with, it must be driven primarily by the animal’s well-being.  They are dependent on us, they trust us, and that creates an intense responsibility.

L’sigh.  I feel it, Hippo, I do.

And now, just for fun, the stats.

Time since last accident: 4 days, 2 hours, and 9 minutes (W00t!)

Number of consecutive nights with no howling: Two.  We are very, very grateful.  We also think his new turtle night-light helps, so he can see us when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

New trick: Two-foot straight vertical jump when I say “Up!” and hold a garbanzo bean up for him. He does very well on his hind legs, and I think Hippo might have it in him to learn to dance with me.

Cherry eye update: I don’t think it’s going back in.  We’re going to have to figure out if we want him to have surgery on it when he’s fixed or not.

Happy New Year, everyone!  May you spend it exactly how you want to with exactly whom you want to!

**Check in here tomorrow, as I will have something special for my readers to start the new year off right.**