Heavens to Betsy

In a recent conversation with my husband, I was lamenting over the laundry list of issues that our dog, Betsy, currently contends with. She has a variety of health and emotional concerns that we cannot really trace back to any particular event. Just the allergies alone require daily medicine. If she does not get this medicine, she licks her back leg until an open sore develops, usually accompanied by an infection, requiring antibiotics. In her 4 short years with us, we have done numerous rounds of antibiotics. She also has seasonal allergies which create red, itchy paws that she licks raw in the spring and late summer. Those allergies mean allergy shots. Recently, we changed her food and gave away all of her meat based dog treats to try and get this allergy thing under control. This resulted in me trying my hand at making sweet potato jerky treats that ended up being more like sweet potato chips.

            “I don’t remember dogs having all of these problems when I was a kid,” I told Tom. I mean, my dog, Sheeba, ate Gaines Burgers and Moist and Meaty packets with ingredients like, “meat and meat byproducts.” Her dog treats were Milk Bones and she never had an allergy or a behavior problem and lived to be 15 years old. Tom’s dog, Patches didn’t have one medical condition either and lived to the ripe old age of 12. Her food was a little better, like Science Diet. But seriously. Easy. Dogs didn’t need meat free, grain free, gluten free, vegetable free food. They got Gravy Train and slept on an old towel in the garage.  Back in those days, when someone watched our dog while we went on vacation, the note said, “Feed the dog. Let the dog out. Make sure she has water,” (if there even was a note). I leave 3 pages worth of “sub plans” and then I still call or text 3 times because there was something I forgot. Maybe when I was a kid people just didn’t have the time or patience for special dogs like Betsy. Perhaps they “went-home-to-the-farm” as my husband sometimes says. Because back then dogs were just animals. Now dogs are fur-babies that get dressed in Halloween costumes. To be completely honest, I kind of enjoy looking up recipes for hypoallergenic dog treats on Pinterest. I don’t know why dogs are so different now than I remember, but one thing is for sure, if that sweet, fuzzy, black and white face will sit up pretty for her homemade organic sweet potato jerky treats, she’ll get one.