RICHARD ORD: This food for thought my put you off your dinner

Here’s some food for thought. Why do we frequently say that intelligent people have a ‘thirst’ for knowledge, when there’s only food for thought available?
Jasper the one-eyed cockapoo. Like most, he'll do anything for a wrapped trachea.Jasper the one-eyed cockapoo. Like most, he'll do anything for a wrapped trachea.
Jasper the one-eyed cockapoo. Like most, he'll do anything for a wrapped trachea.

Surely we should be promoting some sort of drink for thought? Just a thought.

Food and animals came to the fore this week when I moved in with The German.

She was listing the options available for our dog.

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I say ‘our dog’ but Jasper, the one-eyed cockapoo, is only ‘our dog’ in my eyes when strangers are fawning over him in the street. There’s a certain reflected glory in owning a cute dog.

When Jasper is stealing children’s toys on the beach, urinating on their sandcastles, and generally not being a cute dog, he becomes ‘her dog.’ There’s a certain reflected shame in owning a bad dog, you see. Some people kind of blame the owner for the dog behaving like, well, an animal. I was once shouted at by a woman when Jasper chased a cat. Dogs chasing cats! Whatever next?

Anyway, we got onto the subject of animal food when The German started talking about horses at the trough.

I mentioned that, in England, we associate pigs with troughs. Horses with nosebags.

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Rabbits eat carrots, budgies eat seed. Dogs eat from a bowl, cats from a saucer. It’s the way of the world, I don’t make the rules.

Confusion can happen when hedgehogs are thrown into the mix, I admitted. ‘People give them saucers of milk when they wander into the garden,’ I said, ‘ like cats.’

‘You shouldn’t give a cat a saucer of milk,’ The German said, ‘it gives them diarrhea.’

‘Really?’ I snorted derisively. ‘Next you’ll be telling me bread is bad for ducks!’

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Dog food has clearly moved on from the days when tins of Pedigree Chum reigned supreme.

The German was listing the food options available online for Jasper. My ears pricked up when she moaned ‘horse liver chunks, damn, sold out.’

The list of food included veal tongue, buffalo ears and wood pigeon. There was even a ‘wrapped trachea for two pounds fifty.’ ‘Should I get him squirrel?’ she asked.

I said no. If he gets a taste for squirrel, we may be opening up a whole new world of pain. It’s cats who traditionally get stuck up trees, not dogs.

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