Ray and Watermelon!

As many of you will know, while Ray came to us with a lot of “emotional baggage” from his past, one of his more positive traits was his love of food …………….. all food!

Training him using food as the incentive certainly helped him to adjust to the life of a domesticated dog relatively easily. In fact food and positive training techniques made it so routine that I often reflect and wonder what would we have done if he had not been food motivated? He does not get too excited over toys so that alternative training incentive would have been rather pointless!

After reading that rutabaga was quite good at keeping teeth clean, we gave him a piece and he loved it. Green Kale stems? Loved them! By the end of last year, he had convinced us that there was nothing that he did not like!

While the rutabaga and kale stems were a bit of a surprise (very much an acquired taste), one interesting experience was when we introduced him to watermelon. We had no doubts that, based on his history with us, he would love it and we were not disappointed!

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On a hot summer day, we cut a watermelon in order to produce slices which we could easily handle and held one out to Ray. With no hesitation whatsoever, he started working through the first slice in much the same manner as we would have done. In fact the only difference was that one of us had to hold the slice while he ate it. When he had finished, he had pretty much devoured all the flesh and just left the outside rind/skin ………. much as we would have done, and with teeth marks to show just how close to the edge he went!

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He is either getting more like us, or dogs can simply figure out the most efficient way of eating anything. I suspect the latter!

27 thoughts on “Ray and Watermelon!”

  1. jeaninerenzoni's avatar

    Funny, I’ve never had a dog that didn’t eat fruit and veggies … so the comments surprised me. But then I thought maybe it’s because I’m rural and have a garden and fruit trees and raspberry bushes … they tend to pick their own. Actually we have to watch them in the spring so they don’t pull up and eat the young broccoli, cauliflower, and collards. Then later they like to pull carrots and pick their own zucchini and dig up red potatoes. We watch out for where we toss peach and nectarine pits and keep them out of the compost bins – cantaloupe rinds can be tough to digest, but they love watermelon, including the rind and seem to have no gastrointestinal trouble. And green beans – back when we had Airedales … the fence around the garden was mostly to keep the dogs from picking the produce.

    Liked by 2 people

    • colinandray's avatar

      I guess they simply adapt to whatever is available to them …… and enjoy it to the fullest! I have known a lot of people who could really learn from that attitude! 🙂

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  6. Michael (GoldenKali.com)'s avatar

    Kali and Ray are alike in so many ways. One those ways is certainly food. Kali is all about the food and I am convinced she would walk on hot coals to get to a bit of food if she had to… Kali had bouts of diarhera for a while so we have been conservative in what we feed her. She seems to love everything and anything we give her tho’. Carrots and apples are the usual fare of fruits. I will have to try some veggies and see how she does (stomach-wise).

    Liked by 2 people

    • colinandray's avatar

      We are not aware of any issues over Ray’s broad range of food choices however, we do find that he does not “process” carrots very efficiently. The red/orange bits in his poop were a little disconcerting until we realized what they were! Veggies are certainly healthy (after a really good wash) so hopefully Kali will like them. Ray becomes so animated chomping on Rutabaga that it is a pleasure to watch! He appears to be in total heaven! 🙂

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  9. midwesternplants's avatar

    Oh yeah Ray knows a great thing! I wish someone would hold my watermelon so it doesn’t drip down my elbows..
    My boys don’t like any veggies. I’ve tried. Cheese and meat is as far as they branch out.

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