Now We're Cookin'

All of Leo's vitals are good, and he's doing just fine on regular old oxygen, so the super nice folks at the veterinary hospital are pretty sure he can come home this afternoon. There's only one stumbling block: he refuses to eat dog food.

Well, hellooooo! Would they eat dog food when there's a whole jar of peanut butter and a loaf of fresh bakery bread sitting there? Leo had no problem licking peanut butter off my fingers yesterday when I showed up with the emergency provisions. And, according to yesterday's nurse, he would have made room for an entire sandwich later on had they allowed him to be such a glutton.

But they won't release him until he eats regular dog food, and my task this morning is to bring some of his delicious kibble from home and coax him into eating it. Now Leo may have the nicest disposition in the world, but he's a stubborn old coot, and he's no mensa candidate, so I have my work cut out for me. Somehow I need to convey to him the connection between choking down the disgusting dry chunks and going home, where I am certain his spirits -- and his tail -- will lift.

So don't tell my human children, who are well aware that I make very little effort to stock the house with food for them or prepare any sort of delectable meals, that as soon as I finish my Starbucks and this "Leo update" I will be cooking some long grain rice to sneak into the crevices of Leo's food bowl. Not Uncle Ben's instant, mind you; Leo gets rice from scratch. I'd go into the rice paddies and really do it up right if I had some extra time.

And please don't tell my kids about the little thermos of beef bouillon I'll be sneaking into the hospital in my purse. Sure, I love them, but their hungry stares have just never pulled on my heartstrings the way Leo's does. Maybe if they were dimwitted enough to sit for indefinite periods of time, unblinking, watery brown eyes gazing so longingly that it almost seems possible for them to will the food off someone else's plate into their own mouths, I'd take the kids more seriously. Leo (and Manny), not rocket scientists by any stretch of the imagination, have the routine down, and I fall for it every time. Patience can be so much more effective than brains.

Yes, first I will try to reason with Leo, and explain to him that he can't go home until he eats his kibble. Just a few bites. But when that fails, I will be armed and ready with a sprinkle or two of rice and a little drizzle of bouillon. And, with great fanfare and lots of "good boys" from the super nice staff at the veterinary hospital, we will head for home.