Buddy The Trash Picker

By Tom Morrone, CFP ®, CPA

The life of a dog owner can at a moment's notice have an unexpected curve ball thrown at you any time. About 97% of the time, Buddy is a great dog with a wonderful personality and is an absolute pleasure to have as a pet.

Then there is that other 3% that is the wild card. You never know what or when that other 3% will kick in. Now there are certain scenarios that we are aware of that fall into the 3% category. Buddy has an obsession with the mail man, UPS and FEDEX carriers and most contractors that come to the house. Of course Buddy is attempting to protect his turf and wants these people to know he means business. He also has a thing about skate boarders...go figure. Then there is the "hey I am just a dog and that is what dogs do" part of that 3% category. That being said, anything to do with food is a wild card. Buddy loves his food and anybody else's food for that matter.

Cathy and I both are to blame for giving Buddy scraps of table food because we think he is so cute. I know, shame on us. It is what it is. Well recently Buddy surprised us with his love of food or should I say trash. When we go out and leave Buddy home, we always leave him in a secure location with food and water. This one time we left him with the run of the house because we were only going to be gone a short time. That was a mistake. While we were gone and it was only a short while, Buddy somehow was able to open the bi-fold door and get into the closet where we keep our trash can. Yup, Buddy got into the trash and had a field day. We made hamburgers that day and Cathy put hers over a salad and ended up throwing away her roll. Yup, Buddy ate the roll and God only knows what else. That night he was very lethargic.  The next morning Buddy certainly regretted being a trash picker because his body was purging from both ends and it was not pretty. Luckily he did not eat anything that he could not pass naturally even though I am sure it was not pleasant for him. Within 24 hours he was back to normal and functioning in the 97% category.

I would like to think he learned his lesson but I am pretty confident that Buddy has a very short memory and if he had another opportunity to attack the trash can he would not hesitate. We are the ones that learned the good lesson and we certainly will be much more cautious in the future. 

Until The Next Tom's Take...