The Plight of the Mushie

Back in the day Remi, Lucy and Sugar all adored those wonderful white, sugary, spongy, fattening, confections known as marshmallows. My friend Heather calls them "mushies", which is quite appropriate I think.

It's a known fact that kennels at Greyhound tracks use these rather inexpensive mushies as treats for the dogs. So, it's something they've known most of their lives. And they've loved most of their lives. Who doesn't like a mushie, I ask you?

Well, up until sometime in August. Specifically, I think it was August 15th (see blog post, http://patemarie.blogspot.com/2008/08/uwo-unidentified-white-object.html). Ever since that day when the mushie attached itself to Sugar's side and she ran around the backyard with said mushie attached to her, and I laughed hysterically and took photographs as evidence for the blog, and then laughed hysterically some more . . . well, ever since then she has not eaten a mushie. That is also the timeframe when her liver began having problems.

I've tried countless times in an attempt to get her to eat said mushie - tossing it in the air, making her sit for it, putting it into her food bowl, covering mushie with enticing things ie peanut butter or honey - everything and she refuses to eat it. One time she grabbed it mid-air with her mouth and immediately spit it out. She can be such a little defiant creature at times but I love her anyway! That's what makes Sugar, well, Sugar!

In my quest to get her to eat said mushie, every workday I put one in her crate with her along with a cookie. Everyone gets the same thing. Every day I come home from work to find the uneaten mushie stuck somewhere in her crate - sometimes under her crate pad, sometimes in the corner (see picture) sometimes on the side. (I'm surprised she hasn't figured out how to push it through the wires of her crate on either side of her so Remi or Lucy could enjoy the thing.)

And every day when I let them out after I come home from work, Lucy and Remi both dash into Sugar's crate in an attempt to see who reaches the uneaten mushie first (that is also hysterical). Sugar silently just stands there and watches. She really doesn't care who eats the thing because she knows, for sure, that she isn't going to!

I have found, though, that during her recent illness, there are many things she wouldn't eat then that she is eating now. Basically, what was old is new again for her. So I am hopeful, yet again, that she will eventually eat a mushie and will, once more, fall in love with the things.