a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Gotcha Days and Birthdays

Tuesday, March 03, 2020

Gotcha Days and Birthdays

SUMMARY: Excuses for taco dinners
Started in an email discussion with an acquaintance today

I don't recall when I first heard about Gotcha Days.  I tend to celebrate my dogs' birthday milestones (even if they're just guesses) rather than the Gotchas, because that's what my family has always done. Might feel differently if I had been adopted!

BUT sometimes I do celebrate them.  And there are lots of opportunities coming up for something other than the normal kibble.

For their normal kibble, if I give them significant food other than that, I mostly eyeball it to reduce how much kibble they get that day. That has worked fine for Chip but Zorro for a while, but  “suddenly" Zorro put on 3 lbs (that’s 10% weight gain!) over the last year or so and so now I’m futzing with what kibble he gets to try to reduce that. If only he weren’t self-supplementing with the occasional lizard, rat, or squirrel. That’s hard to account for, since I likely don’t see him do it most of the time, and he won't write it down in his food log.

If I had been healthier and he had been more cooperative, I’d have just taken him for longer walks and thrown a frisbee for him more times a day. But, oh, well. I don't think he's ever even seen a frisbee being thrown. And he'll fetch a toy in the yard only a few times before he quits. That's on me, for not being more persistent and interacting with him more over the years. It's just been my persistent lack of motivation.

BUT -- that aside,  they do still get occasional special dinners!

Zorro's Gotcha Day (his 5th) isn’t until early June; Chip’s is at the end of this month (his 6th). Then they have birthdays in May and June, too. Lots of imminent occasions for tacos for dinner. Or whatever. And no kibble for dinner that day.

Sometimes it's MacD, and I order a hamburger with no sauce or ketchup, no onions. But I like crunchy tacos from Taco Bell, so that's what we do most often.  I can hardly wait!

From Christmas 2015

Once when Tika and Boost got hamburgers
Related:
... well, can't find other posts that I thought I had. You're welcome to search my blog yourself for whatever terms you want! (Hamburger, taco...)

5 comments:

  1. I'm not letting Katie read this as she's never gotten a taco or a McD. I don't want her to have any more evidence as to how she's been deprived.

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    1. Gasp! Poor deprived animal! All she gets are tons of walks in amazing places!** Sheesh!

      ** Which my current dogs have mostly never gotten, not even going around the block. Hoping the new knee will help with that...

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    2. I know....she gets spoiled in entirely different ways.

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  2. Chip's expression totally cracks me up :D

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    Replies
    1. Quite a pathetic admonishment, isn't it.

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