Peanut Butter Licks

I need to contact the North American Peanut Butter Council. I think they are really missing something from all those advertisements for their product. Peanut Butter serves as a fine canine Nail-Clipping Facilitator! I’ll bet they didn’t know that.

It is a fact of life that if you have dogs, you must clip their nails. Our two dogs, Buddy (the something or other) and Hutch (the Lab) have different viewpoints of this activity. Buddy will lay back and yawn while you clip his nails. Hutch, on the other hand, will growl and snarl if you start messing with his toenails – and to watch an 80 lb. Labrador growl and snarl can be pretty fearsome. But, we have a system to take care of Labrador nail cutting – and the North American Peanut Butter Council should pay attention.

Whenever we finish a jar (jar? Well, plastic jar!) of peanut butter, we save it. We do not wash it out – but leave all that gooey peanut butter that is stuck to the sides in it. When it is nail cutting time, we pull out the used jar of peanut butter and give it to Hutch. Now to be honest, this is a two person operation. I am in charge of holding the jar up so Hutch can stick his tongue in it to lick out the residue – while my wife does the nail cutting. Dogs crave peanut butter. Hutch is so intent on trying to lick out every last speck of peanut butter from that jar, that he loses interest in everything else. After the nail cutting is done, we them give him the plastic peanut butter jar to mangle and lick on his on. He will spend an hour messing with it. Oh yeah, we also give another jar to Buddy in the interest of fairness.

While on the subject of Dogology, you should know that sometimes the educated approach doesn’t work. One time we bought the dogs some rawhide sticks that looked pretty exciting. I figured the dogs would jump for joy to get them. We gave one of the sticks to Buddy and one to Hutch. Buddy immediately went around the house looking for some place to hide it. I kept telling him to eat it and not hide it. Meanwhile, Hutch proceeded to try and chew his treat.

Soon, Buddy was stickless, and Hutch was eating his. Then I noticed that Buddy would edge closer and closer to Hutch, and Hutch would respond by growling. Our dogs don’t usually growl at each other, so I watched this exchange for a while. Buddy would plop down in front of Hutch, and Hutch would stare at him and growl. Finally, I had enough. I sat between the two dogs and explained things to them I told Buddy that he hid his treat, and I could even show him where it was. He stuck it in between the cushions of the sofa in the living room – knocking all the pillows off the couch in the process. I suggested that if he wanted a treat, he should go get his hidden one, and stop eying Hutch’s. I carefully told them that they each got one treat – and if Hutch chose to eat his, that was his business. Then I looked each one of the dogs in the eye and asked if they understood. They nodded yes.

Well no, they didn’t. But I surmised that they understood.

But, as soon as I left – the eying and growling began again. I even went over and pulled out the hidden treat and waved it in front of Buddy to show him that he had one. He was upset that I ‘found’ his treat, so I re-hid in his hiding place. But the eying and growling continued. Finally I had to shut Hutch up in a room so he could munch on his treat in private.

It has become apparent that my skills as a Dogologist are lacking.