Farley Abuse: Table Scraps Method
I think in my pet years (the years before my allergic wife and son), there were very few times when I had a puppy. They were kept nowhere near the dining room table. We always had outdoor dogs, and the few times we had puppies they were in the garage with the plan that they would move to the outdoors as soon as they were able. So, the issue with table scraps never came up. Consequently I had to do the old Google to find the advice on puppies and table scraps.
This website says:
3) DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT feed your puppy table scraps. Small dogs like poms are especially sensitive. If fed table scraps, your puppy will be doomed to tooth problems, health problems and will likely become overweight. Spicy foods like sausage can make a Pom puppy very ill and can even kill him. If you'd like to give a reward, a bit of liver, cheese or occasional healthy dog biscuit is O.K., but don't overdo.
This website has a similar, but slightly differing opinion:
While the simplest and safest solution is to not give your dog any table food, there are some foods that are fine for your dog in small quantities. Table food should never make up the majority of a puppy’s diet. Dog food is formulated with all of the nutrients and vitamins that dogs need. It is very difficult to give a dog all that he needs by feeding him only table food. But, as an occasional treat, or to break up the monotony of your pet’s diet, tossing him some of your leftovers is acceptable.
This website’s advice is even stricter:
Don’t feed your puppy table scraps. This turns a dog into a finicky eater and can lead to obesity. Changes in food can also cause diarrhea.
What is boils down to is that none of these expert people really recommend it, and none of them say, “It’s OK to do it after they are 6 months old.” I would say that this is yet another situation where Lynn did not properly research for her strip. However, medical science changes quite a bit over time, and it is possible that back in 1980 (when the strip was original printed), this may have been the advice veterinarians were handing out.
I know from my own dog experiences that if dogs are near where people are eating, anything that falls on the ground is fair game; and if there are kids at the table, it will be nearly impossible for them to resist sneaking some food to the dog. My sister keeps a dog in her house and that’s the way it is with that dog. Plus she lets the dog “rinse” the dishes in the dishwasher before she runs a load.
However, since the theme of the week in For Better or For Worse is Farley torture, it is nice to note that her plan to feed young Farley the dog table scraps falls right in line with the other means that the dog was tortured this week. As for Elly’s plan to finish her children’s leftovers herself, since Farley is too young, all I can say is that my mom got into very strange battles with my sister over whether leftovers were kept and eaten the next day by persons who refused to eat them the first time. Elly apparently is not aware of these food storage devices they have called refrigerators, and feels she must consume the leftovers herself.
Poor Elly. Having to make one sacrifice after another.
This website says:
3) DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT feed your puppy table scraps. Small dogs like poms are especially sensitive. If fed table scraps, your puppy will be doomed to tooth problems, health problems and will likely become overweight. Spicy foods like sausage can make a Pom puppy very ill and can even kill him. If you'd like to give a reward, a bit of liver, cheese or occasional healthy dog biscuit is O.K., but don't overdo.
This website has a similar, but slightly differing opinion:
While the simplest and safest solution is to not give your dog any table food, there are some foods that are fine for your dog in small quantities. Table food should never make up the majority of a puppy’s diet. Dog food is formulated with all of the nutrients and vitamins that dogs need. It is very difficult to give a dog all that he needs by feeding him only table food. But, as an occasional treat, or to break up the monotony of your pet’s diet, tossing him some of your leftovers is acceptable.
This website’s advice is even stricter:
Don’t feed your puppy table scraps. This turns a dog into a finicky eater and can lead to obesity. Changes in food can also cause diarrhea.
What is boils down to is that none of these expert people really recommend it, and none of them say, “It’s OK to do it after they are 6 months old.” I would say that this is yet another situation where Lynn did not properly research for her strip. However, medical science changes quite a bit over time, and it is possible that back in 1980 (when the strip was original printed), this may have been the advice veterinarians were handing out.
I know from my own dog experiences that if dogs are near where people are eating, anything that falls on the ground is fair game; and if there are kids at the table, it will be nearly impossible for them to resist sneaking some food to the dog. My sister keeps a dog in her house and that’s the way it is with that dog. Plus she lets the dog “rinse” the dishes in the dishwasher before she runs a load.
However, since the theme of the week in For Better or For Worse is Farley torture, it is nice to note that her plan to feed young Farley the dog table scraps falls right in line with the other means that the dog was tortured this week. As for Elly’s plan to finish her children’s leftovers herself, since Farley is too young, all I can say is that my mom got into very strange battles with my sister over whether leftovers were kept and eaten the next day by persons who refused to eat them the first time. Elly apparently is not aware of these food storage devices they have called refrigerators, and feels she must consume the leftovers herself.
Poor Elly. Having to make one sacrifice after another.
posted by howard at 9:30 PM
3 Comments:
Ah, my. Elly would rather kill her puppy than buy pet food or refrigerate her terrible home cooking because both of the latter options are perceived as too big a sacrifice. The three adjectives that best describe her are lazy, frivolous and pampered. She calls to mid the idiot protagonists of Absolutely Fabulous because she too is an idiot woman who can only live how she wants because some masochistic rube cursed with the need to indulge the fantasies of crazy women because he was raised to think that doing so proves his worth as a man allows her to be a full-tilt whack-job.
dreadedCandiru2
The three adjectives that best describe her are lazy, frivolous and pampered.
I suppose that is the case, but I think the real issue at hand is the strange idea that her kids’ leftovers have to be finished by someone and that someone needs to be her. The other strange idea was that the prior strange idea could only be challenged by having a dog in the house. You might be closer with your description of “full-tilt whack-job”.
howard,
You might be closer with your description of "full-tilt whack-job".
I know. I have never heard of any family anywhere where the mother
felt it was her duty to finish off her kids' leftovers. This belief, which must have had it source in the Ridgway household, is insane. It's of a piece with the strip from the Declining Years that reveals Elly's storage of ancient food (including pork gravy from 1982) in her freezer as if they were holy relics; the same bizarre fixation with saving food applies.
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