Editor’s note: This column first published June 20, 2017.
There is a fifth member of our family who I don’t talk about very often, but he is definitely a big presence in our lives. He has been around the longest, is for sure the hairiest and it can be a tie on who gives the sloppiest kisses.
Our dog, Homer, is a giant, 100 plus pound Black Labrador, Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix who for the most part keeps various areas of our floor warm. That is, unless anyone in the family has food or it is time for his walk.
Homer is the type of dog that always seems to be hungry. At his age of 10, he has started caring less if he is going to get in trouble for an act and has taken the “ask for forgiveness after” stance when it comes to stealing food. The other day, I caught him eyeing my daughter’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich and as I motioned him to leave her alone, he quickly grabs the remainder of the sandwich and scurried out of her room. Thankfully PB&J’s are easy to replace.
Stealing food is not a new hobby for Homer, though, he has been doing it since get became big enough to reach the top of our kitchen counter. On one occasion I had just set out two T-bone steaks to be grilled for dinner. Raw and ready to be cooked, Homer took it upon himself to steal one and have it finished off within seconds. At least if he is going to steal our food, he should try to enjoy it because I wasn’t going to try to get it back.
Homer has always been known to find roadkill and other various dead animals along our walks. On more than one walk he has worked to scrape up dead rabbits, squirrels and frogs from the road to carry around and eventually eat.
Maybe, as his owner, I should try harder to get the dead animals away from him, but I do not have a strong desire to touch the animals and he does become pretty protective of his “catch.”
It was a little harder for me on a recent walk to stomach what he dug up to carry around and eventually eat. We headed out for our nightly stroll and it had just started to sprinkle. Knowing he needed a little exercise, we kept going and the rain never came in abundance while we were out.
About half way through our walk, Homer started digging in a dirt pile. Much to my horror, he came our with a snake. Thankfully, it was a very dead snake, I realized after staring at it intently to make sure it wasn’t moving.
So, for the remainder of our walk, he proudly carried around this snake, and with about a block left, chewed the whole thing up and swallowed.
I was so grossed out by the whole thing, I could barely look at him. I knew what the end result would be, he has an iron stomach that seems to hold anything, but the idea of him eating a snake was just a little bit to much for me.
He pranced inside, happy with his days work and I recounted the story for my husband, who wasn’t surprised but was just as grossed out as I was.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com