Out of patties...now to the tripe.

So Danni 'stole' Emmett's turkey leg that I was planning on offering him until he ate it...he dropped it on the ground and went inside, so I guess Danni thought it was up for grabs. She also ate quite a bit of chicken, so she may only get one meal tomorrow.

Then at Emmett's dinner I was somewhat at a standstill...I took a couple chicken quarters out of the freezer and put them in the fridge to thaw, but that was a bad idea because by the time Emmett needed to eat, they were still frozen.

So, I went to the freezer to check out my options. At first I was just going to use the microwave to defrost the chicken, but I really didn't want to take the chance of cooking the bone (cooked bones splinter and are NOT good for dogs).

Fortunately, I remembered that I had the boneless stew pork that I bought at Smith's for cheap. So I took that out and defrosted it in the microwave. Unfortunately I cooked it a little too much to the point where some of it was no longer raw, but once I dropped it in his bowl, Emmett started eating it without any enticement. He was kind of just picking it up, chewing a little, then spitting it out, but he was eating! So I got the tripe and mixed a little around with the pork, and it was gone in no time at all!

It made me wonder what tripe is, and I found this website:

http://greentripe.com/

And this explanation from that website:

Tripe is the stomach of ruminating animals. These animals (i.e. cattle, buffalo,
sheep, deer, goats, antelope, etc.) are classified as being four-footed, hooved,
cud chewing mamals with a stomach that consists of four chambers. The four
chambers of such a stomach are known as the rumen, reticulum, omasum and the
abomasum. The food the animal eats (i.e. grass, hay) is swallowed unchewed and
passes into the rumen and reticulum where it is then regurgitated, chewed and
mixed with saliva. It is again swallowed and then passed through the reticulum
and omasum into the abomasum, where it is then further broken down by the
gastric juices, amino acids and other digestive enzymes. Yummy!

So how can something so disgusting, be so good? These same gastric juices and
enzymes not only aid the animal in digestion, but also aid the dog in digesting
and efficiently utilizing his food. The amino acids are necessary for muscular
development and, the other gastric juices, I believe, are the best cleaner for
their teeth!

I took the pork shoulder out of the freezer to thaw it for tomorrow morning...we'll see if he'll eat that. :)