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de Vos: A bone for the dogs

Jon de Vos
The Friday Report
Jon DeVos
Staff Photo |

I heartily believe our sofa would float away on Sunday afternoons were I not sprawled across it. I vowed to my wife that I would do my utmost to prevent its loss. She rolled her eyes, which I took as a clear sign of her gratitude.

Last Sunday our basset hound, Freeta Goodhome, clawed her way up on top of me and shoved a paper in front of my book.

“Ow! Ouch! What do you want?” I howled, “It’s still three hours until your dinner, get off of me!” Freeta’s understudy, a bundle of rescued neuroses named Surely, sat on the floor watching with an A-student focus.



“Just look at this!” the basset growled, pushing the paper under my nose, “A classic example of corporate greed stomping the hopes of the disenfranchised.”

“I know that everything’s about you,” I said, “but before you can be disenfranchised, you have to be franchised first. By the way, GET YOUR CORPULENT BUTT OFF ME!”



She sat her ground, right on my chest, staring down at me, breath redolent of last week’s tuna. I pulled the paper off my nose so I could read it. It was a news story advocating feeding table scraps to dogs.

I stared up at her beady eyes, set quite a ways back up her prodigious snout, “So, Miss Disenfranchised, what’s this article got to do with corporate greed?”

“It explains why Surely and I need a refrigerator.”

“Okay, now I’m confused.”

“Leftovers only make us sick because we’re forced to wolf them down all at once. We can’t portion it out sensibly because we have no storage place to keep valuables like apple cores and two-week-old pizza. With our own fridge we wouldn’t have to eat everything on the spot, thus allowing healthier eating habits.”

“Do I have this right? To help you and Surely entertain raccoons all night, we’re supposed to drop two hundred bucks on a little fridge?”

“Nope, On-Line Garage Sale, fifty bucks, free delivery.”

“I’m still not seeing the corporate greed part,” I said.

“Where’d you hear table scraps were bad for us?”

“I dunno,” I said, “conventional wisdom? Ask anybody, they make dogs sick.”

She shook her head pityingly, “You’re a numbskull. The internet’s full of stories of damaged relationships because some dummy fed a bean burrito to the fiancé’s dog and it Shi-Tzued all over the house.”

“Well, yeah, I guess that’s my point.”

“Those are totally bogus urban legends!” she snarled, “Lies, damned lies spread by pet food manufacturers. Their ads lay a sneaky guilt trip like you’re supposed to feed us “specially formulated” kibble that tastes, incidentally, like woodshop sweepings. Three-hundred years ago we were getting by fine with “specially formulated” rabbit guts.

“You’re not exactly a poster child for the undernourished.”

“That was just an example!” she barked, “Look at you. You had a dinner party last night and what did I get? Squat! That’s what. You didn’t hand me a single bite.”

“Not after someone showed me a “cute” phone shot of your ample behind standing guard while your comrade pulled leftover chicken wings off the table.” Surely stared out the window and stifled a small belch.

“Sheesh! ” Freeta growled, “Don’t waste your time on that ‘he-said, she-said’ stuff. Photos get faked all the time. Say! Do you want to know another good thing about that fridge?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s bone white.”


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