Gone Nuts

Mixed nuts are a staple at my house, usually left on the counter for my husband to graze at his leisure. After opening a brand new jug of these pricey snacks, I came home to find over half the container already gone. That’s an ungodly amount of nuts for anyone to eat in a single day.

Only, I figured out, it wasn’t Wayne who ate them…it was the dogs. And how do I know? Because I woke up to find Max, my French bulldog, depositing in my living room not one, not two, but three steaming piles of (you guessed it)...nuts. They were all there- the cashews, the almonds and even the pistachios. The next morning, we woke up to another heap left for me by JD, our other pup.

We talk all the time about not feeding the dogs people food, but since Wayne’s diagnosis, those sweet dogs are living large, knowing a few well placed stares can yield table scraps galore, or, in this case, half a container of very expensive mixed nuts. So, I hid the Planters when my husband wasn’t looking and left a large sticky note on the table: “Do not feed the dogs people food. It will make them sick.” The same message went on the pantry and on my husband’s desk.

The dogs, meanwhile, remain unfazed by Wayne’s dementia. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve finally cracked the code to the snack situation…and they’re nuts about it.