# Dinner Party and Pet Disasters



## Lynan (Aug 12, 2006)

Have you had one?? 

A few years ago, I had my table beautifully set for dinner, matching flowers, my best silver etc. I had also placed the butter pats on the table.
Mid drinkie poo's before dinner, a friend came out to tell me that I had best check the dining room. In I go and see Julio, my Chinchilla cat ( no longer with us) in the middle of the table with most of the butter gone and he looking decidedly pleased with himself. 

Another time Lace, another cat, helped herself to most of the cheeseboard. I realised she had a fancy for quince paste too!!

With the pooches, my big Maremma detroyed a fully laden antipasto platter by hooking it off the sideboard. So far my wee one Dalai has not done anything worthy of mention.  Yet.


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## phu (Aug 12, 2006)

Well, not with my current dog... our apartment wasn't and our condo isn't big enough for him to get himself into any real culinary trouble. 

My parents' dog, though... well, the best one was when my dad and I had made a raspberry pie and left it to cool on the kitchen counter while we went to the basement to watch a movie.

Half an hour or so in, we heard a clattering upstairs and headed up to check it out... the dog (65 lb coonhound) had jumped onto a stool and then to the counter (the stool had fallen over) and was standing over an empty pie crust.

He lept from the counter and sped off to his kennel, but he'd managed to put away an entire raspberry pie, minus the bottom crust, in about 20 seconds.


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## SierraCook (Aug 13, 2006)

We had a golden retriever that once at a pound of sliced roast beef.  My mom had planned on making French dip sandwiches for dinner and sat the roast beef on the counter.  Then the phone rang and she went to answer it.  When she came back the roast beef was gone and the dog was sitting on the kitchen floor with a very smug and full look on his face.  She was so mad!!  That dog was lucky she ever let him in the house again.


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## Half Baked (Aug 13, 2006)

I've had a lot of dogs in my life and not one of them has ever gotten into the food.  If I have appys on the coffee table, I just say 'no no'.  The may sit there looking at it but not one of them would go after it.

Even my Great Dane, who used to rest his head on the kitchen counter, never grabbed anything.

I've been very lucky with dogs.

Now the cats that I've had...that's a whole different story.   Sneaky little devils who would wind themselves around wine glasses and flowers on the decorated tables and walking through the butter.  Then they'd sit on a plate and lick their toes.


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## cjs (Aug 13, 2006)

One Thanksgiving (or Christmas) a friend brot a pumpkin pie straight from the oven to our house. We were letting it sit out to cool and you guessed it - like Phu - Luther, our dog, enjoyed it immensely!!!


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## Harborwitch (Aug 13, 2006)

Welllllllll; it wasn't a dinner party, but . . . we were fostering a little Pug/chihuahua mix named Martie (along with her buddy Pug Ryder and our 2 Pugs).  It was nearing Christmas and I had been baking my food head off.  The dining room table was covered in tupperware full of spritz cookies and trays and trays of little meringue "caps" that I had set out to cool, and several tins of decorated sugar cookies.  I also had six of those big tubs of Christmas decorations waiting for me.  On top of one of those I had laid out a 5lb bag of flour, and various other ingredients for the cookies.

Had to run to the office for a couple hours.  What I didn't know was that my DH had (not knowing it was candy) put a small box of brandy filled chocolates under the tree.  When I came home the candy box was shredded all over the kitchen floor.  The tupperware containing the spritz cookies was on the floor - empty, there were no meringue caps anywhere, and 5 lbs of flour was smeared all over the floor - on top of the remains of the sticky brandy filled candy.  Oh, did I mention that Martie was in the middle of this frey -(other dogs were asleep by the fire in the living room) throwing up everywhere?   The Vet said the only reason she didn't die was because the brandy counteracted the chocolate.  

Gawd, what a mess - had to use putty knives to scrape the mess off the floor.


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## Constance (Aug 13, 2006)

My mother used to make beautifully decorated birthday cakes for my daughters. One day, when I was out in the greenhouse, my mom came in and told me she'd left Jamie's birthday cake sitting on the kitchen table. 
When I went in the house later, I found that Minnie Dog (rat terrier) had gotten up on the table and eaten the whole top out of Jamie's cake. Jamie was old enough that she thought it was kinda funny, but we both agreed that Grandma White must never know! 
I now have 2 Siamese cats and a very nice little black mutt named Chloe. I have learned that I can NOT set the table in advance. The cats are way too curious. They are not allowed on my counters, but that doesn't mean they don't get up there when I'm not watching, so everything is always covered or set in the microwave. 
Chloe hasn't caused any problems. She gets plenty of doggy treats (Milkbones) and occasional tidbits of people food, which seems to keep her content.


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## expatgirl (Aug 13, 2006)

Two Stories if you can bear with me:

Story #1:  while in Egypt I had prepared a beautiful. marinaded stuffed beef tenderloin (as in filet mignon species) and was going to grill it for company.  I took it to the grill on the patio, realized that I needed foil, ran back inside for all of 30 seconds, and when I came out saw the flash of a huge, black alleycat going over the wall with my tenderloin. There was a marinade trail from the table up over the wall marking the end of what would have been a beautiful $$$$ dinner.  Man I was so mad  that I even invoked a few Arabic cuss words.  Well, I guess there was some "payback" because the next day this same cat was discovered with a blown-up stomach and in full rigor mortis!!!!!!!!!  To this day I'm teased that that could have been one of my guests instead.  Ha!!!

Story # 2--When I was teaching science many moons ago we had a pet frog that we kept in a terrarium that was stocked daily with wonderful fresh insect delicacies that my students would bring "Fred" and supplemented by meal worms.  I allowed them to come into the science room before school.  One day "Fred" was brought a new terrarium mate----another frog, smaller, but just as cute. All the students were happy to welcome him--much like DC does with  their new members.  The next morning I checked on the buddies and noticed that there was only Fred.  I couldn't understand what had happened. The lid was tightly closed.  There was NO way that Tom could have jumped out and replaced the lid and none of our janitors (all females)  would have come near that terrarium. Then I looked closely at Fred-----yep, Fred had a noticeable bulge to his abdomen and no lie, I swear that he was grinning---Fred was a cannibal!!!!!!!!!What did I tell the students????  What do you think???


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## Claire (Aug 13, 2006)

Once upon a time, many years ago, I was married to a man with a sweet tooth.  He was a shift worker, so I decided to experiment and found a recipe for breakfast rolls of some sort.  I don't to this day bake very well, so this was really an effort (I was 19 or so).  I put the coffee cake (brother!  as I write I'm remembering more) on the kitchen counter of our trailer, and lightly covered it with a sheet of tin foil.  I woke up just before my husband came off of his shift and walked into the kitchen .... to find my new kitten coiled up and sleeping happily on the coffee cake.  It was so cute, all we could do was laugh.  

I never again bothered to make coffee cake!


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## expatgirl (Aug 13, 2006)

Harborwitch said:
			
		

> Welllllllll; it wasn't a dinner party, but . . . we were fostering a little Pug/chihuahua mix named Martie (along with her buddy Pug Ryder and our 2 Pugs).  It was nearing Christmas and I had been baking my food head off.  The dining room table was covered in tupperware full of spritz cookies and trays and trays of little meringue "caps" that I had set out to cool, and several tins of decorated sugar cookies.  I also had six of those big tubs of Christmas decorations waiting for me.  On top of one of those I had laid out a 5lb bag of flour, and various other ingredients for the cookies.
> 
> Had to run to the office for a couple hours.  What I didn't know was that my DH had (not knowing it was candy) put a small box of brandy filled chocolates under the tree.  When I came home the candy box was shredded all over the kitchen floor.  The tupperware containing the spritz cookies was on the floor - empty, there were no meringue caps anywhere, and 5 lbs of flour was smeared all over the floor - on top of the remains of the sticky brandy filled candy.  Oh, did I mention that Martie was in the middle of this frey -(other dogs were asleep by the fire in the living room) throwing up everywhere?   The Vet said the only reason she didn't die was because the brandy counteracted the chocolate.
> 
> Gawd, what a mess - had to use putty knives to scrape the mess off the floor.




Dear Harborwitch,

LOL I couldn't but think of the movie "BABE"  Oh, my how horrible your day must have been.  I admire all of you animal "foster parents' mom and dads.  Brandy should be in our medicine cabinets and not in the liquor cabinets-right?  Glad that all worked out.


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## Half Baked (Aug 13, 2006)

Oops, I lied.  I forgot the Christmas tree incident with my Lab.  Bought Mr HB a really very expensive imported milk chocolate bar, wrapped it and put it way back behind presents.

The whole family went out and when we came home, all the presents were unwrapped, the choco bar was gone and there was diahrea (sp) all over the carpets.  Oh yuck, it was extremely gross and maddening.

He had never touched presents before (8 yrs) and I could kick myself for hiding the chocolate there.


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## expatgirl (Aug 13, 2006)

Dear Half-baked,

Sometimes presents brings presence of essence-------I have animals and I know that must have been a yuck experience----ugh!!


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## BlueCat (Aug 13, 2006)

One Thanksgiving, after dinner was over and retiring the guests to the living room, my Min Pin Grommit was conspicuously missing and quiet.  I went back to the kitchen area to find him standing on the table with a feast of turkey and all the trimmings.  My brother hadn't pushed in his chair after getting up, and that was all he needed.  At least dinner was over.

BC


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## Alix (Aug 13, 2006)

Ours was post Christmas dinner one year. I had drained all the turkey fat into a jar before making gravy with the drippings. I set the jar outside the backdoor to solidify before I tossed it in the garbage. After dinner we were all sitting around groaning and replete and laughing at the dog who was belching in a most undignified and well...gross fashion. After about a half an hour our golden urped an ENORMOUS pile right by the front door (and down the stairs...ICK!) which effectively ended the party. After everyone went home I realized the jar of turkey fat outside the back door was empty. EWWWW!


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## Ellen (Aug 13, 2006)

One of ours made off with a cooked leg of lamb.  Fortunately I had done two.


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## Gorgonzola (Aug 13, 2006)

This is a Pet disaster!


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## Half Baked (Aug 13, 2006)

BUSTED! 

What a beautiful cat, Gorganzola!  Is it a special breed?


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## Zlatko (Aug 13, 2006)

expatgirl said:
			
		

> Dear Harborwitch,
> 
> LOL I couldn't but think of the movie "BABE"  Oh, my how horrible your day must have been.  I admire all of you animal "foster parents' mom and dads.  Brandy should be in our medicine cabinets and not in the liquor cabinets-right?  Glad that all worked out.



this movie Babe, i watchd it for the 1st time last week, with my neighbor Giuseppe.

"la la, la!"


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## Gorgonzola (Aug 13, 2006)

Myah is a Serengeti. A cross between a Bengal and an Oriental Shorthair. When it comes to tiolet paper she's got over 70 "Kills"!


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## Half Baked (Aug 13, 2006)

roflmao


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## expatgirl (Aug 13, 2006)

She sure is good at it------I'd hate to see her in a public restroom with one of the industrial-strength toilet paper rolls--------you'd have to medicate her!!!!!!!  LOL!!!


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## Zlatko (Aug 13, 2006)

Gorgonzola,

The shoes in the picture are very nice.

Do you know the Run D.M.C.?  They are very popular where i am from, with the song My Adidas.  i hope to one day have a pair like that.







I wonder, do they cook too?  or, perhaps with money and fame, others work the food for them?


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## Harborwitch (Aug 13, 2006)

Well, again - not after dinner but. . . . little Miss Martie was a Chug with a death wish.  Our kitchen had an island with an open cabinet under the top where I stored all of our electrical appliances (that would fit).  We went for a boat ride (or something) and came home to find all the appliances spread all over the kitchen floor.  We gathered them up and put them away before we made a cocktail and headed for the living room.  There was Miss Martie urrpping all over the couch, the rug, everywhere . . . . and the living room smelled delicious - like fried food!  She had emptied the cupboard until she got to the deep fat fryer, somehow got the lid opened and consumed the fryer full of wonderful fragrant peanut oil.  Oh geeeze - what a mess.


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## Corinne (Aug 13, 2006)

I was draining frozen broccoli in a colander in the sink one day. One of my Birman kitties must have hopped up for a taste, decided she didn't like it & yakked all over the rest of it. She must be related to George Bush! 

Another time I was dicing buffalo chicken to make Buffalo Chicken Salad. The phone rang - I answered it & got off the phone ASAP. By the time I came back, everything I had diced was gone. What wasn't chopped up was left for me.

And on & on. I don't answer the phone anymore when I'm cooking.


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## expatgirl (Aug 13, 2006)

ok, guys--we're nuts to be keeping these pets-------Right??????? Would any of us trade them??????Noooooooooo----There lies the  rub--------nuts unite!!!!!!!!!!


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## Claire (Aug 14, 2006)

Another good one was when I decided to surprise my husband for his birthday.  I reserved a condo on the other side of the island, at an out-of-the-way place.  Got there, it was not clean.  Left.  Went to have lunch at the Paniolo Cafe.  A Japanese tour bus had just pulled up and there was no room for us.  OK, you cannot stop me, I had a cooler of food, let's have a picnic at a beach park on our way back home.  Got there to find out it was roped off as a crime scene.  Decided "to heck with it" and just went home.  I'll take you to our local Korean/Sushi place.  Closed.  Went home and ordered pizza.  Now, that's hard to get wrong, but honestly, it was close to inedible.  Our "coffee table" is a large what they then called Geisha tables (in other words a Japanese dining table).  At this point we had a couple of stiff ones and went to bed.

Here is where the pets came in.  At the time we had a cat and a very, very small puppy.  We awoke the next morning to find that the cat had taken the pizza off of the table so she could share it with the puppy (who at the time  maybe weighed 4 or 5 lbs).  Hubby and I never did have a celebratory dinner, but our animals sure did!


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## Half Baked (Aug 14, 2006)

That certainly will be a memorable birthday!


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## Harborwitch (Aug 14, 2006)




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## Bugs (Aug 20, 2006)

one time my mom put a container full of fat from a turkey dinner (i think) outside and my dog (golden retriever named abby) went out and ate the whole thing! then she puked everywhere in front of all our guests!!


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## Harborwitch (Aug 20, 2006)

Many many years ago my daughters and I had spent the day picking enough fresh raspberries to make a beautiful pie and a huge batch of raspberry ice cream in the electric (add ice and salt type) ice cream maker.  Our guests arrived, we ate a fantastic dinner, took a walk on the beach and came back ready for the goodies.  

I brought the pie out to the deck and we went to get the ice cream that had been curing under ice and newspapers up on another picnic table.  There was the ice cream freezer on the ground, salt and ice and shredded newspaper everywhere - and our neighbor's dog up to her ears in the container - finishing the last drops of fresh raspberry ice cream.


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## Lynan (Aug 21, 2006)

One thing we have to give these animals, apart from cooking oil and fat, is they have GREAT taste!!   I mean to say, fresh raspberry icecream? lol

I once left a punnet of fresh strawberries on the coffee table and disappeared to do something. Came back and Nelson had demolished the lot. Only evidence that they had existed was all the wee green bits and stalks spat out all over the carpet. 
See! They have great taste.


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## Harborwitch (Aug 21, 2006)

Same neighbors not long after that incident moved away, said they'd be back for Patchouli (the ice cream theif) in a week.  Four weeks later she had 6 or 7 puppies and still no owner comeing to claim her.


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## Claire (Aug 21, 2006)

Harbor Witch, I can identify.  One time I had an Indian dinner party, and used a wok to fry pappadams. It was snowing outside, and we were in crowded quarters. I was afraid one of us would knock over the wok full of hot oil, so I put the wok outside in the snow. My dog started puking and pooping all over the place that night (thankfully, after the last guest was gone), and I couldn't figure what in the heck. I put her outside and looked over .... she'd drunk well over a quart of cooking oil. She weighed maybe 8 lbs at the time. My lord, what a mess. But what would posses an animal to do that? It can't have tasted like much.  Maybe it was peanut oil, that would make sense (she loved peanuts).


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## BigDog (Aug 21, 2006)

Harborwitch said:
			
		

> Same neighbors not long after that incident moved away, said they'd be back for Patchouli (the ice cream theif) in a week. Four weeks later she had 6 or 7 puppies and still no owner comeing to claim her.


 
Sounds like you were had!  

I love all these stories! Of course the ones that could have posed a real danger are scary, but since it all came out (from both ends) alright they're funny.

I recall my dog Jake, from you youth. He was a lab/shepherd mix we bought from the MaSPCA for $20.00. Mom was making a chocolate layer cake, and took the cakes out to cool. Knowing we had to leave, and knowing anything near the edge of the counter was fair game for Jake, she moved the cooling cakes to the center of the counter.

When we got home, there was only 1/2 of one of the cakes left. He (and perhaps the dachsund {sp?} Luther) ate the missing parts. Amazingly enough, not one problem! Even minor! Couldn't believe it! Mom was a bit unhappy though . . . . . 

Don't recall any other stories involving food and pet mishaps. Well, if you forgot to push your chair in and left cereal on the table, Jake decided he would help you finish. One of the cats we have now (Smokie) is kept on a pretty tight leash cuz she'll try most anything, but I've forgotten on occassion to put my cereal bowl away, and within seconds she's cleaning up whatever residue there may be.


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