A few nights ago we were forecast to receive four to eight inches of snow. In my experience, NOAA is always conservative in their estimates, and sure enough, Saturday morning we woke up to fourteen inches of snow, and it was still snowing. I wondered how the pups would take this, having spent the first two months of their lives in warm weather. As it turns out, they love snow! It didn’t matter that they were now shorter than the snow depth, they just plowed in, even though I had shoveled some pathways for them.
They have a lot of fun outside, and the extra work romping through the snow helps drain their energy. It also, however, increases their hunger. They learned very quickly what a dog food bag sounds like, and not long after that they learned where it is kept in the pantry. I’m fairly diligent about keeping the door closed so as not to encourage scavenging, but I must have failed to make sure it was latched one time. Which is all it takes, of course. After a good snow romp I fed the dogs, then went into the other room to do some work. Some time later I heard the dog food bag moving, and when I came in to the kitchen I found this:
Talk about an immersion experience…Otter must have thought she’d gone to heaven. I pulled her out and closed the door, wondering how much she had eaten. I didn’t think she’d had time to eat very much. But a couple hours later, after she’d been to the water bowl a few times, I noticed how bloated she was. Her belly was so big that I laughed, and then wondered how long it would take before she got down to a normal size again. About three hours after that thought, I was working at my computer when she came to lie at my feet. I put my hand down to pet her and when I felt her belly I thought, oh good, she’s moved some of it through. And not two seconds after that I said to myself, what’s that smell? Yup, that’s what it was, in a giant pile over in the corner. Come on, Otter, the door was open, was that really necessary? Apparently so, and I laughed more than once as I cleaned it up.
Bozeman Foster Dogs 