It's All About Presentation

Arlo will eat anything - all the things that wouldn’t surprise you, but also many things that might. Like green peppers, potatoes, apples, bananas and carrots. Tory, on the other hand is pretty squeamish about non-traditional dog tasties. But as we’ve all learned from the Martha Stewart show, it’s all about presentation.

Let’s take carrots as an example. Arlo will beg for those little snack-sized carrots as long as there are carrots in the bag. His crunching naturally brings the other two pups running, but once within sniffing range, Frosty will snort in disgust. Whether the snort is about the carrots or the fact that Arlo’s inhaling them is debatable. Tory is a little less disdainful, but she still isn’t inclined to put one in her mouth. Unless they’re scurrying across the floor. Really!

I tossed Arlo a carrot the other day. Naturally it bounced off his nose because he doesn’t get the “catch” thing. It hit the floor and bounced and he bounced right after it, and then pounced on it like the mighty hunter he imagines himself to be. The bouncing really got Tory’s attention so I tossed a carrot down the hallway and she took off like a shot in hot pursuit. Guess it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Greyhounds + anything moving = a race

I was amazed to see that when the carrots were “presented” this way, there was no pausing to sniff and assess edibility. Nope. Tory pounced and snarfed and eagerly looked to me for more.

Catch the carrot has become quite the game at our house. It's a retired greyhounds version of wild hare coursing but (as long as we’ve vacuumed recently) they don’t have to deal with hairy prey.

Yeah, I amuse easily. But so do the hounds … and it gets them to eat their vegetables. Score one for the humans!