Adventures in Dog Treats!

Hi guys!  It's been a while!  But I had a really funny thing happen yesterday, and I really needed to tell someone.  A lot of someones.  And you are one of those someones.  Woo!

I've been MIA for a while, working on my latest book (it's almost there!!), and in the time it's been since I last posted, we got 2 dogs! Amy is our sweet 70lb tan mama dog, who was sad and missed her puppies someone allowed her to have before we took her in.  We tried lots of things to help with that, but nothing we tried seemed to help, so we decided maybe she needed a friend. So 6 months after we adopted her, we got her a little 30lb chocolate-colored buddy, Edwin. The two of them are silly and inseparable, and keep us all busy.

 They, like all dogs, love their treats, and need good chew toys, so when I was getting them more food last night, I caved and grabbed the big bag of cadet sticks that I'd been debating for a few weeks. The bag says they last a long time, and while they're more expensive than the rawhides I usually grab for them, I figured if they last longer, it might be worth it. So, this new brand of treats came home with me.

The dogs were super excited when they saw me opening a package and smelled what was inside. The texture on these new treats was... let's just call it disturbingly smooth, and they smelled nasty. I thought it was weird, but got the pups to do a few tricks for me, and handed them off.

Amy refused to put hers down, and sat next to me with that thing clamped in her teeth.  She wouldn't follow Eddie up the stairs. Eddie likes to steal her treats and eat them if he can, so she is smart about where she eats them, and she apparently wanted my back up on the matter! So I told my husband what she was doing, and we had a good chuckle over it while I went to close the bag up for later.



 Amy's strange reaction to the treats is what got me looking at the package, wondering what the deal was. And why were they so soft? So stinky? The package said they had one ingredient, but I couldn't find the ingredient list. Until I started looking at the package really really closely.

 And then, there it was, plain as day, "Bull pizzle." And I knew. Oh god. I just stared. They wouldn't give something a cute name like that unless it's gross. And what could "pizzle" mean, if it wasn't penis? But no, no, Penis is exactly what it was. Of course. Fuck! I bought my dogs Bull Penises for treats, totally unaware of what I was doing. Rawhides are bad enough, but this is somehow soooo much worse.

 And then I realized I TOUCHED THEM, and the disgust was real. And I realized I would have to touch them again if I wanted them to last longer than one day! Horror slowly crept in. And nausea. And I realized, I'm a horrible vegetarian for buying these. But I still couldn't stop laughing, because it was such a ridiculous reaction to buying them something so nasty. There the dogs were, guarding their precious penis treats, breath stinking up with the nasty smell they give off. They wouldn't come upstairs when it was bedtime.

 

They wanted to hide downstairs and chew those fuckers up, all night long. And now that I knew what they were, I didn't want to fight them on it, not really. But maybe my husband would save me! So I ran upstairs to tell him what I'd done, and he just laughed and laughed, and said he wasn't going to touch them either!

Eventually, I worked up the courage and made myself take the penises away, and sent the dogs to bed.  They cried and cried, begging to get them back!  It was so horrible and so fucking funny, my stomach hurts from laughing about it, today.

But seriously, look at this shit. They clearly don't want you to know what these things are. They write all these distracting positive messages all over the package.  Natural!  Healthy! No fillers or artificial ingredients! Grain-free!  Gluten-free!  Okay!



And there, lurking in the small print on the back of the label, is the truth.



Single ingredient.  Shhhh, don't ask what it is!  No fillers or preservatives.  Now you're just repeating yourself.  Wholesome tasty long lasting chew!  Hooray!  Maybe they'll be worth the extra $10.

Remember to watch your dogs when they have a treat, blah blah, give them water, blah blah, it's not a meal-replacement, yeah yeah.  And there it is.  The truth in all its pizzley glory.

So, PSA.  Cadet Sticks are Penises from Bulls.  If that grosses you out (LIKE A RATIONAL HUMAN BEING!), then you probably don't want to spring for these.  They don't last any longer than a rawhide (which, let's face it, is gross enough!), so it's not worth it anyway!  Unless they really are healthier, in which case, ugh.

Check out the bottom left hand corner of that fine print label!  Not only are they bull penises, they're EXOTIC bull penises, from faraway lands.



In case you wonder what a bull penis tastes like, sadly, they're NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.  Don't have to tell me twice!