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A weird thing happened at a dinner a few days ago. We were eating cake and a gentleman at the table choked on the cake and had a huge coughing fit. Seriously, it was like he was trying to cough his lungs out of his nose.
All of a sudden, he got very, very generous and decided he was going to give his cake and frosting to my two dogs who were eyeing him enviously from underneath the table. I was struck by his sudden generosity, because he hadn’t been giving the dogs anything to eat before, but now all the sudden he couldn’t wait to feed them that cake.
When we examined his portion we found the reason for his sudden generosity, during his coughing fit he had puked a little bit on plate, and was trying to hide it by feeding it to my dogs.
Suffice to say, I was immediately grossed out. I mean, I know that dogs eat their own vomit and in fact, will sometimes growl at you if you attempt to clean up their vomit before they’re done eating it, but isn’t that what separates us from animals? The fact that we know human beings should not eat their own vomit or any other creature’s vomit?
The gentleman in question argued his point that the dog would not know it was vomit; that it was still chocolate frosting –it had only been in his stomach for a mere few seconds- and over 95% of the frosting was vomit free- so in fact, it was a tasty treat for the dogs.
Now, I love me some chocolate frosting and this was homemade Hershey’s chocolate frosting here! Amazing chocolate buttercream like God intended. And I’m not a waster either- I would firmly apply the 5 second rule to a slice of this cake that had fallen on my floor because seriously, it was that good. But I do draw the line at vomit (and also fecal matter but we’re not talking about that here.)
So what ensued at the table was a five-minute conversation on when and where it was acceptable to feed a dog vomit. Is acceptable to feed them their own vomit and is it is acceptable to feed them your vomit, if you know that they will consider your vomit a tasty treat.
Also, is there an acceptable percentage of vomit- to- frosting ratio that we should look at? Like is 5% vomit to 95% frosting okay, but when you get down to a 50-50% is that dog abuse? Or is it just abusive to feed any living creature your vomit even if you know that they would eat it, smack their lips and ask for more?
Of course, my reaction to the whole situation is that it’s unacceptable to feed a dog vomit no matter how much that dog wants that vomit, and no matter how chocolaty and tasty it is. But clearly, people do have opinions on this subject ranging from- vomit is okay to give to dogs, to a strict no-vomit policy. So I have to ask, Dear Reader, where do you fall in your vomit policy?
