I have created a monster. Her name is Violet, and and she is a pumpkin-thievin' dog.
You think I am kidding???? I have photographic proof!!!
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
As a few of you know, like my grandmother, I am an avid gardener. If I plant it, and the conditions are right, cultivated landscape becomes The Jungle in the blink of an eye. This mess with my cervical spine meant that everything I planted early this spring ran riot -- especially, the heirloom New England pie pumpkin vines. This means, of course, that I have lots of small 3, 4 and 5 lb. pumpkins all over the garden patch. And those of you long-time dog people also know that pumpkin is good for alleviating doggie diarrhea, so there were occasions in Violet's puppyhood when she was fed a tablespoon or two of canned pureed pumpkin. And as some of this excessive pumpkin crop has matured, I've added some freshly cooked pumpkin to the now 1-year-plus Picky Princess' food once or twice a fortnight (I swear, I should have named her Wallis Simpson or Twiggy).
A few days before my surgery, I was out picking the then-latest round of this pumpkin bounty, depositing them carefully in a flat-bed wheeled garden cart so I could haul them to the kitchen door without hurting myself. Two of them were the perfect size -- I could easily get two pies out of each of them, right about 4 or 5 lbs. I laid them in the cart, turned to get the last two small ones that were ripe, and went back to the cart -- only to find that one of those perfectly-sized pumpkins was gone! What the...????
Well, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Violet hunkered down in the grass, gnawing on what I thought was her ball. As I stepped towards her, searching for where this stupid pumpkin could have possibly rolled, she leapt up and raced for the opposite corner of the yard -- with that damn pumpkin in her mouth!!!! I don't know how she got her mouth around it, because she is very delicately proportioned, and I really didn't think her muzzle was that big. But she had it, it was Her. Prize. Pumpkin., and she was not going to let me have it back.
I tried recall.
I tried our bring it, sit and give routine.
I tried base bribery with baked chicken liver and homemade doggie cookies.
Nothin' doin' -- it was HERS. Goddamn menace....
Dear Husband came home in the middle of all this, and the two of us tried to corral her. No. The Streak flew past us at top Belgian-light-speed, prize still firmly grasped in her jaws, canines flashing pearly-white and harvest-orange. At this point I lost it, just began laughing and could not stop. I looked at DH and said, "We need the digital camera, set for movie mode." He got it, and we proceeded to get a small clip of this insanity and a few stills. Eventually the Pumpkin Princess wore herself out, and we were able to retrieve the now much-battered pumpkin. Utterly unfit for pie, it became her designated pumpkin diet supplement.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. The pumpkin vines were still pumping out pumpkins at a prodigious rate (Grandmother would have been jealous). I identified four more perfectly ripe pumpkins, and brought them in one at a time, placing them in the middle of the kitchen island. There they sat, waiting for DH to have a day off so I could get him to halve them so I could prep them for pie puree. Around 10 AM, we were in the kitchen, along with all three furkids (Violet and the two cats) discussing this very thing. I picked up one, realized it had a soft, mushy side, and handed it off to DH to take outside. I figured, if it was no longer fit for pie-making, it could at least be salvaged for its seeds. After all, that was what Grandmother would have done, right?
Violet's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw DH holding that pumpkin at waist level, and she leapt for it. Oh boy! A new pumpkin to play with!!! Startled, he dropped it -- KERSPLAT!!! Overripe pumpkin splattered all over the kitchen floor. I found some flecks of it six feet away on the wall by the door, that's how mushy this thing had become. Violet lunged to get a mouthful, I grabbed her by the collar, hustled her out the door into the backyard, and turned back to DH -- whereupon we both began to howl with laughter. Now, my voice still has not fully recovered from the surgery, and it was much, much worse then, so my laughter sounded like a strangled hyena wheezing. And we both laugh even more....
Meanwhile, The Pumpkin Princess stared mournfully through the door, watching sadly as we cleaned up the mess. Life is so damnably unfair.
Never fear! The Priestess of the Great Pumpkin has figured out how to jump the damn rabbit-wire garden fence! She tried two greenish pumpkins before she found the perfectly ripe, two-pie pumpkin, again. Literally, she bit them off the vines or uprooted the vines trying to make off with them. That's when this series was taken, and a whole new saga began:
PUMPKINMANIA!!!!!!!
The Pumpkin Princess Strikes Again!
Pumpkinmania part 1
Pumpkinmania part 2
Pumpkinmania part 3
Must! Eat! More! Pumpkin!!!
Myyyyyyyyyyy PUMPKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!
The pumpkin-munchin' terror...
...who also raids zucchini. No squash is safe with this beast....