Is there a non-toxic substitute for democracy?

While waiting for the groomer at my veterinarian’s office to finish trimming my dog’s toenails, I idly wandered around looking at colorful posters on the wall about keeping pets healthy and safe. One of the more eye catching examples pictured charismatic fruits and vegetables, all of which looked delish, to me. This poster’s purpose, though, was to sort those items that were fine for dogs to eat, if they liked. The other category, ominously, featured those fruits and vegetables that weren’t just unhealthy for dogs to eat, they were downright toxic.

Certainly, I wanted to know more about that.

I’d long known that dogs should never eat chocolate. I realize chocolate isn’t a fruit or vegetable, but the fact that it is toxic for my stealthy little chihuahua was a good reminder.

I also knew dogs shouldn’t eat grapes, or their dried version, raisins. Peaches, pears, bananas, however, are ok. Pineapple, too, though I can’t imagine any dog wanting something so citrusy and weird.

Dogs should avoid tomatoes. Who knew that? Same with onions, but who didn’t know that? Dog breath even without onions is hard enough to take.

I won’t go through the whole poster or the follow-up looking-up I did when arriving back at home. For I’d been stopped in my tracks at the mention of one of my dog’s go-to treats on enchilada night: the avocado, both the smooth and wrinkly varieties.

Should I be feeding the dog anything at the dinner table? The answer to that is no, but that boat sailed six years ago when we adopted her. But allowing leeway here in being the perfect dog “owner” let me say I’d never give my dog an entire whole avocado, allowing her to fight through peel, spit out pit, and work off resulting high caloric intake.

Being the scrupulous dog-mom type, I found a website from a highly respected animal organization that seemed to have succcumbed to generative AI producing its animal health and safety recommendations. I won’t mention which it was, because today, as I look back in order to acurately quote from it, the language is gone.

The jist is, my avocado-loving dog might be unhappy if she suddently no longer gets that occassional mushy green handout at the dinnertable.

Instead, I might try purchasing an avocado shaped dog bed, which might soothe her transition to plain dry kibble. Yes, a dog bed, shaped like an avocado. Whether in its whole form, or its cut lengthwise with pit removed version, was left to me to imagine. So I googled it.

Yes, you really can buy a dog bed, shaped like an avocado. Somehow, I don’t think JessiBelle would fall for it, or even understand its conceptual connection.

There is a moral, or metaphor, or life lesson, or freaky irony in this, somewhere. If only it were possible to take an unpleasant reality and reconfigure it into an alternative panacea.

If I can’t have the X I want, I can make myself feel better with Y. If I can’t find the job/ home/ partner/ lifeway I want, I can always find something that looks, feels, or quacks like what I want. If I can’t find the democracy I want, I can make myself a democracy-shaped house of straw to lie down in, with the dogs.