I've Turned My Dog Into a Cream Cheese Whore

I bet that is is headline you don't see every day, huh?  But it's true.  My dog is now a maniac for cream cheese and it's all my fault!  It all started when Dave, my older dalmatian, started having bladder issues.  He was always thirsty and had to be let out to pee every two hours or he'd have an accident.  You could tell that he couldn't help himself and there was no reason in getting mad at the dog, but something had to be done.

So what does this have to do with cream cheese?  Don't worry. I'm getting there. Anyway, I took him to the vets and it seems he had a bladder infection.  The vet perscribed some antibiotics that Dave needed to take for a whole month.  Now Dave is one of those dogs that will eat practically anything, anything unless you want him to eat it.  Trying to get him to take the a pill was damn near impossible.

I tried putting it in his dog food and he'd eat around it.  I put it in a piece of meat and he'd spit the pill out. I wrapped it in peanut butter and with one sniff he'd turn his head up to it.  I felt like shoving it up his I didn't know what to do. I was forced to stick a peanut butter wrapped pill halfway down his throat through tightly gritted teeth and several snarls.  The peanut butter stuck to his tongue and he was forced to eat it.

But that ordeal was just that, an ordeal.  I needed a better way to get him to take his meds, one that was less stressful for both of us.  The epiphany came while I was making a bagel with cream cheese.  A small dollop of cream cheese fell from my knife to the kitchen floor and Dave flew in from the dining room like a bat out of hell.  Within a milisecond, the dollop was gone and Dave was staring at me with his "I'll Die If You Don't Feed Me Something" look on his face.

I took my coffee and the cream cheese laden bagel into the living room, turned on the tv, and plopped down on the sofa.  As I flipped through the boring Saturday morning cable line up, Dave was sitting right next to me in a rigid "I'm Ready For the Next Glob To Fall" position, with big globs of drool sliding down his jowels. And it hit me.

No, not Dave or the cream cheese or the bagel.  The answer to all my problems was smeared all over my toasty, Thomas' onion bagel.  I'd wrap the pill in cream cheese!  I was so excited I almost ran into the kitchen to give the little bastard sweetheart a second pill.  But I held off until his evening dose.

When 7:00 arrived, I carefully wrapped the pill in a nice glob of cream cheese and called Dave over to me.  He knew it was pill time and was slyly watching me in the kitchen from the dining room.  He started to move away but caught a glimpse of the gleeming white ball of goodness on my finger tip.  He hesitated and then with one fell swoop, I almost lost my finger.

Now giving him his pill has been no problem at all.  Twice a day, he perks up because he's getting his cream cheese.  It's pretty amazing. In fact, Heather was making some cream cheese and celery pieces to have before our Easter dinner and Dave was up her butt the whole time, whining and staring and slathering big globs of droll all over the kitchen.  After she finished, she sat down in disgust and exclaimed, "Dave's addicted to cream cheese and it's all your fault!"

Yup, it sure is.  I just don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of medicine.  Does anyone know where there's a cream cheese withdrawl clinic for dogs?