BeagleBlogging: The Insatiable Beagle
Dinnertime hasn’t been the same since the Beagle entered our lives. It is a well-known fact that these creatures (genus species proboscis insatiabalious) are eating machines. It’s not just that they’ll eat anything; they’ll eat as much of anything as they can find, no matter how disgusting, sick or depraved, and then ask for seconds. There have been documented cases of beagles eating entire crates of styrofoam peanuts, whole bins of reprocessed dingo fat, vast canisters of pickled bat guano; and, in the most extreme cases, small children who have just eaten something that the beagle was particularly interested in.
But Beauregard’s diminutive stature has been our salvation. Ever since the dog arrived, our household motto has been Eat High (Latin: masticus eleavatious), as he has trouble getting to anything above five feet. We’ve taken to eating our meals standing up, watching TV, while the dog leaps around us in circles, like a giant nose on a pogo stick. He’s been known to clamber up on the kneewall behind our couch and hurl himself at us, crashing into our plates like a dense, floppy-eared meteorite, in his frantic efforts to get at whatever we’re eating. He can’t help it. If you were to map out his brain, the MUST EAT NOW region would be a continent about the size of Africa, while the rest would be a tiny little Florida-shaped peninsula hanging off the side, like a deflated Christmas stocking. And even that miniscule holdout goes over to the dark side when there are hamburgers in the house.
His technique, whenever he gets ahold of something, is to quickly shuttle it toward the back of his mouth, no matter how large it is, and try to masticate it into something that will fit down his throat, using back teeth and sheer force of will. He does this because he knows I’ll be going in after it. Once he swallowed a large hunk of bread, and forced it so far back down that I was up to my elbow before I managed to reach it.
But don’t just take my word for it. We have some photographic evidence of a recent incident in the park, involving my wife, the dog, and an innocent grapefruit that was just minding its own business, not bothering anybody. We’d decided to go on a picnic (an entirely rational, reasonable thing to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon) and to take the dog with us (a completely insane, inexplicable, batshit crazy thing to do on any day). There were no tables involved, just a blanket that we were determined to loll on while eating; as a result, we were forced to wolf down our lunch with one hand while fighting off a crazy berzerker beagle with the other.
The pictures below were taken after we’d finished the main meal. My wife took out a grapefruit and began to peel it while gazing out at the beautiful, shimmering lake before us. Which was a mistake, because Beauregard was doing some gazing of his own:
Gee, he thinks. That’s kind of orange. Like an orange. I like oranges. But this … this is bigger than an orange. And juicier. And roundier. Any yummier. And MINE. MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE.
And so he sidles in a little closer … and closer … and closer …
… and then, finally, he goes in for the kill.
Sadly, I wasn’t quite quick enough on the shutter to get the actual event. And, really, he only managed to rip off a small piece before my wife went into her defensive crouch. We’ve had a lot of practice.
That night, he swallowed half a muffin, and then got through most of a kite. This morning, he threw up shiny bits of an unknown metallic substance.
Somebody help us. Please.
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