dogs as omnivores

Penny is quite an adventurous eater, and willing to try new things.

Lately we've had lots of feijoas, courtesy of a friend with a huge crop on her tree, and Penny likes them.

I think perhaps she's willing to try many new foods because of having been offered a wide variety throughout her life. But she doesn't like celery!

In the back lane today, while I was contemplating the prolific crop of lilly pillies on a neighbour's tree, and wondering what I could cook with them, seeing they were just falling to the ground and rotting, Penny had wandered off towards our house. When I reached her, she had a big hamburger bun stuffed into her mouth. I got a bit suspicious that she wouldn't look up at me, and crouched down to look, and there it was. Such a trophy.

After a long battle of wills, in which I held onto the bun and repeated the command, 'Give!', she finally gave it to me. What a hard decision that must have been for her. I rewarded her with some yummy peanut butter treats from Ivory Coat. We got them from Deb at Bow Rei Me, when Penny had her Bowen therapy last week.

Another interesting treat Penny had this afternoon was a -hopefully very small - mouthful of fertiliser pellets, aka chicken poo. She was investigating a pot of wild rocket seedlings and, once again, wouldn't look up at me, always a tell-tale sign that she's pinched something she shouldn't. The dirt around her muzzle was another strong clue!

Now the plant is up high on a table.

I had a look in a book to see what I could cook with the lilly pillies, but it all seemed a bit too hard, so we're freezing them for the time being, and human number two might try them out as fabric dyes if we don't cook with them.

(The lilly pillies are in the plate at top right. There are some olives at top left. I'm experimenting with preserving them.)