Skip to main content

Pity Ham

Now that we are back home with the dogs, we have started the slow process of watching Rigger go down by degrees.

It's so odd that one day he was mostly fine and walking around and the next day he was unable to walk and so terribly sick.  We knew this time was coming, I just thought it would be different somehow.

He doesn't want to eat much.  Foods that he loved before have no interest for him now.  And there were very few foods that he didn't love.  He spit out an onion once.  And once at the vet when he was younger, he refused an organic dog treat.  I think that's about it for his list of "no" foods.

Now he will eat only ham and chicken, and even then he refuses those about half the time.  He doesn't want dog food, even the canned kind, which was usually enough to make him knock Ringo over trying to get to it.  We tried to give him Pediasure for the vitamins, he wouldn't even try it.  He doesn't want his doggie treats.  He even refused chocolate.

We've been putting his medicines in food, it's the easiest way to get him to take them.  But now when he doesn't want anything, it's harder to get him to take his pills.  Luckily the pills he is on right now are so small we can just poke them in his mouth and he can't find them to get them out before they dissolve.

Since ham is one of the two things he will eat now, I bought a giant ham at the store and we've been carving off chunks to give him.  I was standing there last night feeding him ham when Katie said, "Mama, Ringo is standing right behind you!  You need to give him some ham too!"

Guiltily, I turned around and offered him some ham.  I should have called him to come have some ham, but I'm so focused on getting Rigger to eat something that it didn't occur to me to include Ringo.

I held a piece of ham out to him and he sniffed it, then turned away.

The girls laughed hysterically at that, "He doesn't want your PITY HAM!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Sumida Watercress Farm

This week, we went on a field trip to Sumida Watercress Farm in Aiea. Ben was not happy about going with us. He grumbled the entire way there about me waking him up early to "watch things grow". Sumida Watercress Farm grows 75% of all the watercress produced in Hawaii. It has been run by the Sumida Family for three generations. One of the most interesting things about this farm is that the Pearlridge Mall was built around it because the Sumidas did not want to sell the land. It's very cool to look at this little farm and then see the city buildings all around it. One wall has the tails of marlins they have caught, each of which weighed over 600 pounds! One was even from an 800 pound fish! Mr. Sumida brought out a giant bowl of crawfish which live in the water. He showed the kids how to pick one up and where to hold it so it couldn't pinch them. Katie picked one up and it promptly twisted itself into a backflip and pinched her finger. We got to walk out through ...

Luau, Luau

This week we attended our first luau! We went to the luau at the Hale Koa hotel. The grounds were just incredible. There were men playing soft Hawaiian music, the plants and flowers were glorious. There were people in native costumes making headbands out of palm fronds, chopping up fresh coconut for us to taste, handing out flowers for us to put behind our ears and handing out seashell leis to each guest. It was very relaxed and peaceful. This was a Samoan man who kept us entertained during the cocktail hour. He was very funny! Check out those tattoos. He said the tattoos were part of a rite of passage that he had to go through. He said it took fourteen days to complete the tattoo and, yes, it hurt. And yes, everything was tattooed. He demonstrated how to climb a coconut tree using only a bandanna around his feet. They picked people out of the audience and gave them a quick hula lesson. Katie was thrilled to be one of the people chosen and of course it irritated Ben because he thi...