True story - The Mystery of the missing Dog Food

Some days I feel like I could be Erma Bombeck and write books about the daily things that are so normal, yet so funny. My mother has all the Erma Bombeck books and use to say our family had to be secretly video taped as some of her stories were so true to our family. We all laugh now as it is true. The craziest things seem to happen to the most normal people...okay maybe that is the problem...none of us are normal.

The Mystery of the Missing Dog Food

My Dad is a master carpenter. He has built everything from toy chests to houses. When all of us kids moved out and on they finally had the money to build a workshop attached to the back of the garage. It is like walking into Bob Villa's workshop. Everything in the right place and every tool imaginable is in there. Five drills hang on the side wall all with a different bit ready to drill, screw, cut or make a hole into something. In the middle of the workshop are 2 table saws and a huge workbench.

If you were to look around the shop the only thing that would maybe look weird (besides the wood stove and TV) is a huge dog food pan filled to the rim with dog food. Now it won't take you long to realize why it is there when Shadow, their little black lab, comes bounding towards you. Dad has always had a shop dog, so there has to be a water bowl, food dish, and doggie door to the backyard in the shop. It has been part of life for so long it is life. Here is where the story begins.

Now from my description of Dad's workshop with everything in a place you can understand why this story is really quite funny. Every day my Dad starts his day with a cup of coffee, a smoke, and making sure the dog has a full water bowl and food dish. The dog doesn't eat much outside, but it is there in case she needs to eat.

About 2 weeks ago Dad started noticing that in the morning the food bowl was completely empty from the following day. Now Shadow is very overweight, but Dad hasn't seen Shadow eat that much food EVER in the garage.  Dad would fill it up and next day the dish would be completely empty again.

Last Dad started to suspect that something or someone was coming in at night and stealing the dog food. Of course their suspicion is always on some kids or 'weird' people in town so they started locking the door to the workshop. The next morning again the food dish was completely empty.

This has gone on for two weeks now and Dad went and bought animal traps to see if he could catch the villain!

Here is the last saga that came in today, written by my Mother.

On Monday Morning, October 4, the dog dish in the garage was completely empty. On Tuesday, October 5, the dog dish was again empty and one of the straw bales was tipped over outside. Tuesday afternoon Dad and Mike (neighbor) put a live trap outside the doggy door. Nothing happened. Thursday morning the dish was empty again. Thursday afternoon they put the live trap in the shop and Friday morning nothing had happened. On Friday they put flour on the floor to see if they could find foot prints of some sort. At this point I was being accused of doing this after dad went to bed. (Good idea but I didn't think about it soon enough) Nothing happened during the weekend but yesterday morning the food in the trap was gone and half of the food in the dish was gone and there were some kind of small footprints in the flour. Yesterday afternoon Mike got his big traps and dad bought some smaller traps and sticky paper to put down. This morning nothing had happened. They have figured that it may be a red squirrel but we sure can't find it. Dad sprayed ether and some other stuff all around in the shop and nothing came out. There is no evidence of poop, etc.

So dad is busy, busy, busy, busy!

Only 37 degrees this morning but should get up to 60 today. We will take it!

Guess that is all for now.

I giggled when I read her report and can't wait for the continuation of the Mystery of the missing Dog Food!
Here's to finding the humor in our families!