Abigail is going through another one of her no eating phases, complete with excruciatingly loud stomach rumbles which are guaranteed to be followed by either A) massive diarrhea and/or B) projectile vomitting. Usually if I shove her stomach pills down her throat and can get her to eat, everything will be ok. But getting her to eat is a slightly bigger challenge than you would expect.

Case in point:
So far I've tried smothering her food in chicken broth topped with her most favorite and tempting treat - cheese. Except this time I thought I'd get really tricky and put shredded cheese in so she HAS to eat the food with it. I'm such a smart human. Except she practically rolled her eyes at my attempt to out-whit her and simply licked around the food bits and, in the case that she actually got any food in her mouth along with the shredded cheese, spit out the unwanted food as if it could poison her.

After two hours of listening to the painful (to me) stomach rumbling I decided it was time for her to hit the hard stuff - straight cheese. Except she wanted nothing to do with it, which is a pretty good sign something is really wrong. However, it was Swiss cheese, and seeing as how I can't stand the stuff, I thought she might take after me. Bread is always a good standby. She has eaten a fair amount of that off the counter top (especially the really expensive gluten-free kind), so I gave it a shot. No go. Now it's Defcom 3. Her stomach is starting to sound like if I don't get something in it soon it's going to expolde, leaving me with a huge mess to clean up. But with cheese and bread out of the picture, I've run out of ideas. The dog doesn't eat anything that grows out of the ground. Period. Unless...

Unless I leave it on the counter and leave the room. She has eaten more stuff off of our counters that she would never consider eating even if I offered it to her smothered in furry squirrel carcasses. She seems to delight in the naughtiness of doing what she knows she's not supposed to do. Just like a child. And then she stares up at us with her big, sad brown eyes, begging us to forgive her because how could we be mad at such a cute face. And it totally works, because just like every modern day, co-dependent parent, we're totally spineless and reinforce her bad behavior by showering her with love and cuddles and cleaning up all of her messes. She'll soon start smoking crack and ask us for money to support her habit until we can no longer afford to do so and she has to start whoring herself out. And that's just our dog. Imagine how great our children will someday turn out.