Dog Parenting for Dummies

Oh my, tonight I'm feeling like the bad parent. Earlier this evening, Charles and I snuck around the back side of the garage with Charles growling like a mean, gnarling dog and jumped out frightening our sweet little General. All in good fun. I grabbed him up immediately and hugged and kissed on him as he realized we weren't the big dog.

But earlier today I found a slew of cherry tomatoes on the vine and after I picked a few I gave one to General and then another and then another. He must have eaten 4-5. He seems to really like them. I realized this a few weeks ago when he found one that had fallen to the ground. He found it and devoured it immediately.

As I went to pick one more this evening and give it to General so that Charles could watch, Charles asked, "Aren't tomatoes poisonous to dogs." I said, "Nah." He's eaten them before.

Well low and behold I do a quick Google search with the keywords Dogs and Tomatoes and wouldn't you know the first 4 searches tell me what I now fear - Yes! They're poisonous. Okay, I didn't actually open the pages, because denial can save us somewhat, yes? Why the heck open them to find all the problems with feeding tomatoes to my precious General.

I'd prefer to live the Scarlett O'Hara quote: "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

Oh, but didn't he look cute with that t'mater?

And since we're talking about tomatoes I thought I'd leave you with the lines of one of my favorite veggie tunes by the Blue Dogs.

Homegrown Tomatoes

There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Lord get you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un.
Plant 'em in the spring eat 'em in the summer,
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer.
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un.
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown Tomatoes,
There's only two things that money can't buy:
That's true love and home grown tomatoes . . .

Yep, every night

At least 2-3 times a night we have ring side seats at Chihuhua vs. Shih Tzu. Let the good times roll . . .

General It Is!

Charles and I had a tough time deciding on a name for our new puppy. We have Gizzy the Chihuaha, Belay the Calico and Zambezi the Himilayan.

My cats were named after events that occurred in my life. Belay joined me right before I went on a rock climbing trip and Zambezi joined our family just before I went bunji jumping over the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Gizzy took up residence with Charles last year.

I thought an Ewok name would have been cute and Charles was pulling for Chewbaca, but I have had my fill of Star Wars from my Ex and just couldn’t bring myself to anything from those films.

As I’ve learned a bit about Shih Tzu’s history from way back in 624 A.D. I found it steeped in China and Tibet, which led me towards wanting to name the puppy after one of the places I’d been in China, like Xian or Wuhan or perhaps the Yangtze River. I taught English in Changchun, north of Beijing during the summer of ’87, but the thought of hollering any of those names was a bit bizarre.

We finally stumbled across General Tso. Yes, from the Chinese dish General Tso chicken, but the real General Tso was from the Hunan province in China, which was one of my favorite places. And you know it fits well. We’ve taken to calling him General.

I’ve attached his latest videos where he’s quickly learned how to grab hold of Gizzy’s collar and pull her around. It’s hilarious and the reality is that he will always be a bulldog!

Oops - I guess that last comment should have some explanation around it for those of you who don't know. One of my fellow co-workers at Bulldog Solutions was actually the first "mommy" to General, but unfortunately she couldn't keep him, so she brought him to the office and I took him home and adopted him into our family. Thank you, Linda!



Who's in charge? from Kim and Vimeo.