[Dailydrool] Carrots and Temple Grandin's book, "Animals Make Us Human"

[Susan Murray-Grage]

Charlie came to live with us in October at approximately two+ years of age.  He was evidently unfamiliar with the diet that his new brother, Otie, knew from puppyhood.  Otie has eaten a raw food diet since he came home with us as a puppy at only 2 months old. In the raw food we put an ever changing variety of vegetables: carrots, turnips, green leafy veggies, beets, etc plus a fruit or two (apple, banana, orange usually).  These veggies are incorporated into a mix of ground chicken backs (bones with some meat) and organ meat, plus a few other goodies like eggs, flax oil, garlic and yogurt - so this is far from a vegetarian diet.  Howeve, Otie - who loves gnawing on raw bones, also LOVES veggies.  Whenever we remove broccoli, carrots, green beans, lettuce, or other veggies from the fridge, Otie seems to hear/sense the action no matter where he is at the time: he runs in from outside (doggie door), or from snoozing in the living room or bedroom and parks his little bottom as close to us as possible without impeding our ability to serve him his favorites.  Now since this is a forum about bassets, I must confess that Otie is not a basset - but Charlie is.  When we first offered him a green bean, he was very apparently confused about being fed something so foreign.  Same reaction to lettuce, broccoli, etc.  He also did not know how to catch the tidbits, just watched them fall to the floor.  Well, I am proud to say that we have turned Charlie around, and he is almost as quick as Otie in flying his little bottom to front and center of the prep station, and catches flying veggies like a four legged juggler.  

 

As for the second part of my subject line, I have just begun reading Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin.  Grandin discusses the behavior of different species of animals.  It is her finding/opinion that the widely held belief that wolves travel/live within packs of unrelated adults is false:  in the wild, wolves live in families, and only in settings such as zoos, and parks where wolves are reintroduced by humans are they found in groups of unrelated adults.  That said, Grandin states that as members of a family, wolves do not vie for dominance, because the parents are always dominant over their children, even when the children/pups are grown.   But wolves in unnatural groupings of unrelated adults do have dominance issues, and fights for status.

 

Grandin writes that she wonders if dogs living with humans are more like the unrelated wolf packs found in zoos, or like the wolf families found in the wild.  She then remarks that having 2 or 3 dogs can be much more than double or triple the work of having just one.  When I read that I immediately thought about the many droolers who write about their multiple dog homes.  Our two dog family definitely has a lot of issues that would not exist with only one, territorial issues being the number one issue - always brought on by Otie the dachschund.  Otie's first brother, Jack, was a basset with a very different temperament than Charlie.  (Charlie is by far the easiest going individual I have ever met, of any species).  With Jack and Otie, the territorial/possessive/attention/food/you-name-it issues often erupted, despite the fact that the two had grown up together from puppyhood.  


So how is it with multiple related and unrelated bassets?   

 		 	   		  
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