A thread on LRNW has been making me laugh :)

So how many of your dogs have eaten some ill gotten Christmas Fayre ? :D

Mars and Min my first two Labs scoffed their way through a big tin of Grandmas mince pies

The tin was on the kitchen table and they carefully knocked the lid off and ate all the contents :D :D

We had a gorgeous blue boy called Jai who was an absolute angel...apart from the only thing he ever did wrong....my Mum had just iced a huge Christmas cake and stupidly left it on the worktop to dry. He managed to jump up, pull the whole lot onto the floor and licked ALL the icing off, although didn't eat the marzipan or cake so was either full or didn't like that part!! He had such a sweet tooth after that!!!

My Aunts old Lab SallyAlley ate a big strawberry flan my Aunt had left out on the work surface one Christmas :D :D She ate all the strawberries and cream and left the sponge :D

No one is going to believe this but I have a dog that doesn't steal food.  No really she doesn't.  I caught her standing on back legs trying to reach a cooked chicken once and I shouted so loudly I have never seen her do it since.  Not only that but I have come home to find that kids have left toast or sandwich crusts within reach and dog hasn't taken them and could have easily.  If it's dropped on the floor it's fair game, if it's in her bowl she won't touch it until the command.  I'm not gullible though and know this could change in a second.

Anyway, so not my dog but someone I worked with, their dog took all the chocolate money and chocolate baubles off tree and ate them, silver paper and all as well as a big bar of Cadbury milk chocolate wraped up under the tree.  Dog was very very sick, everywhere for hours and hours and then started dire rear everywhere.  Woman has an open plan house and dog apparently wandered about being ill in all the rooms.

So not funny really but happily the dog did recover but I don't think the carpets did

My old springer decided one day that if the kids can pop out into the kitchen and help themselves to a freshly baked and iced fairy cake then he could to - he would have gotten away with it too had it not been for the pink icing on his nose, muzzle and the two front claws that he'd used to 'grab' the cake off the plate ! :D

Our Bulldog was a huge fan of icing too - she bugged me sooooo much one day that I gave in and gave her a wee bit (about half a teaspoon) of glace icing, wow, if you ever need to get a bully going give them some of that, she ran around the house on a sugar rush for about half and hour :D

Looking forward to this christmas though as it will be Dylans first, so far he's left the tree alone but he did watch me with a scheming eye putting on the candy canes earlier so joys to come I suppose :)

Bramble stole some newly-baked mince-pies the first Xmas that we had him (amongst other things like a whole box of liquer chocolates). My son had just made a batch of 24 and left them on a cooling rack on the work surface. Bramble had eaten every one that he could reach - there was a neat semi-circle (he couldn't reach the rest :D ) :D :D If you or I ate more than a dozen we'd be ill, wouldn't we - he's only 18kg and wasn't ill at all :D :D

Daisy

Chez's chocolate story reminds me of friends of ours. Who were so confident that their cocker spaniels couldn't get on the table that they didn't think twice about going out for Christmas Eve drinks leaving a tin of Quality Street and several of those stocking filler thingies that Cadburys do on said "unreachable" table. They returned to complete chocolate carnage and the associated regurgitated evidence. Apparently the room looked like a cross between scenes from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and The Exorcist.

They're still convinced that the dogs worked out some sort of doggy pyramid trick to get onto the table because neither of them were agile enough on their own!

>Apparently the room looked like a cross between scenes from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and The Exorcist

:D :D :D

Sounds like the woman's house that I worked with. 

There is a moral isn't there?  That's why I keep reminding myself that my dog could change anytime and wouldn't leave anything tempting for her.  My kids got told off for 'teasing' her with leftover food left within reach.

Tara has never stolen any food :D :D :D Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn't have said that .................... :D

Daisy

We had been to our nans on christmas eve and came home to find our cat Sid had jumped up onto the worktop where the turkey for christmas dinner was defrosting and knocked it down to share with the 'lads'.
Bob and Ben were stuffed when we came back and we ended up having chicken breast steaks for chrizzy dinner.:)

I'm convinced one of my labs has a lizard tongue he regularly swipes food from the bench,  (head flat down on one side with his tongue like a yo-yo) despite my best attempts to put it as far back as I can, I sometimes think he's getting a leg up from one of the others! and when you come back into the kitchen you can almost hear them whistling as if bored, and leaving me thinking I'm losing my marbles (did I REALLY leave my dinner there). Last Xmas enjoyed a lovely ham... oooh I still hope it didn't burn his wee mouth (if his wee mouth even got to taste it)
Sonja

well this isnt christmas stuff but once we left the holiday stuff in the kitchen and went out, she stole a bag of sugar, a packet of butter, 2 packs of sweet and then threw it up all over the floor

Another day she got into a bag, opened a lunch box and stole the contents, and another day she opened a bag and stole a pack of biscuits

The best though was our cat he stole a chicken out from under the grill while it was still cooking!!!

A friends GSD plucked all the grapes off the bunch just leaving the stalk perfectly intact.  She also punctured the lid of a bottle of labrini which was in a wine rack and they caught her lapping away at the quirting vino, luckily she hadnt managed to drink much but she was a bit squiffy. 

It's not only Dogs - my worst food stealing experiences have been with cats!  Years ago, whillst still living with parents, Mum put the ready to roast Turkey on top of the (very tall) fridge, in its roasting tin, covered in a tea towel, waiting for oven to reach temp. before cooking the Turkey.  When we lifted the tin down to remove tea towel and put bird in oven, discovered that Mini (the cat) had made a feast of one of the breasts!  After a quick, whipsered discussion between Mum and self, we bunged some bacon strips over the breasts on both sides, carried on as if nothing had happened, and were very careful to present the "good side" to the waiting table at dinner time!  Around that time family friends had 2 siamese cats who were mad over poultry.  Their owner took the turkey out of the oven to baste, and was disturbed by phone ringing so got husband to put it back in oven.  AS she finished the (thankfully brief) phone conversation hubby commented on how heavy the turkey was.  Looking round she saw no sign of one of the cats, the other cat was licking his lips suspiciously - then she heard a muffled "yowww" - from the oven!  He had climbed INTO the turkey, and was busy almost roasting!  Slightly sore paws, but no lasting ill effects.  Last case was my old ginger cat, who was nuts for prawns and in his time smashed numerous bowls and plates used for defrosting prawns, and even went so far as to dip his paw into a bubbling pan I was using to heat filling for prawn vol-au-vents for a party!  Current cat's speciality is to share "Booty"  he finds things on the work top, has a nibble, and then kindly knocks the rest onto the floor, for the pleasure of seeing the dogs get into a frenzy!
bye
Gwen

>hubby commented on how heavy the turkey was.

Sorry but that had me in STITCHES laughing! Glad the greedy moggy survived unscathed though. I reckon that cats are much more successful thieves because dogs simply aren't anywhere near as silently sneaky. Plus dogs give the game away more quickly!

Years ago we had a cat who had worked out how to open the fridge by scooping her paw underneath the door. Except we didn't discover this until Christmas morning when we got downstairs to find a whole section of raw turkey neatly nibbled away. Because the bird was too heavy to knock off the fridge shelf she'd just eaten it "in situ".  The turkey looked like someone had taken a small chainsaw to it and I'm ashamed to admit that we just washed that bit off and poked extra chipolatas into the space when we served it.

My firend used to say that if her two ctas had been human they would have been criminal masterminds. They worked as a team to steal food and open doors etc. One morning, my frien cooked off some mince before going to work. She left it in the saucepan to cool with the lid on, intending to return at lunchtime to put it in the fridge. When she did return at lunch she found the saucepan exactly where she left it, with the lid still on, however, the interior was spotless. Thinking she was losing her marbles and that she'd already put it in the fridge she went to have a look.....and then noticed the trail of gravy pawprints leading from the cooker in the direction of the catflap :D :D

LOL Gwen We have similar trouble, we are SO careful to keep food out of reach but have still had one of our cats steal a whole roast phesant that hed been left in the oven with the door slightly open. Fortunately we heard the thud as it hit the floor. Same cat used to open the cupboard doors and pass food out for the others to eat. Another cat is so keen on BBQs that we have to do a leaflet drop in the spring asking neighbours to not leave meat on the grill and to put it out with water after Fin came back twice in one summer with burnt paws.

One of our old neighbours dogs did a classic. We all went out for a bit of a drink on Christmas eve and left said dog at home. When we returned somewhat later we were greeted by a very sorry dog. On investigation she had eaten all of the doggie chocks from around the tree and left all of the human ones - bless!

http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pro_apcc_publicationsgrapes

The potential results from dogs consuming raisins et al via mince pies or Christmas Pudding et al are perhaps not quite so laughable.........

We had problems with Bramble for the first year or so after we got him from Battersea :) He stole quite a bit of food - mince pies and a huge binge of chocolates one Xmas - fortunately got him to the vets in time :) Since then we have been VERY careful to not leave anything out that he might get at. He is now so much better and wouldn't even touch food left on a low table if someone left the room. But we have practised food refusal a lot and he hasn't stolen anything for at least 4 years. Tara (who we have had since a puppy) has never stolen anything - so I think that, with careful management, it is possible to stop dogs from stealing - mostly by never giving them the opportunity :)

Daisy

A friend of mine had a lurcher that managed to open the fridge door and eat the entire contents of a two liter tub of margarine.All through the nigh the poor man was in and out with the dog so it could do its buisness.He said later that day that he had to hose the garden down as it was puddles of poo instead of piles of it .:)

One of mine got a hold of a deep fat fryer full of cooking oil, and emptied it! I had a lovely clean kitchen floor when I got home as he'd licked it clean, but my carpets were a mess the following morning - shame I was moving house that day and had promised to leave the carpets - they really weren't worth saving :(

Copper is the original pie thief.  He once ran in and troughed a coffee table full of pie/quiche snacks I had arranged for guests.  No reason for it, just run run, munch munch.  It was a total mission from dog heaven in his case.  Thankfully for the guests Plan B was in place :D

CG

Last Christmas my dogs were not as well behaved as they are now (ahem :D) and they managed to get into the upstairs spare room where they ate their way through ALL the Christmas presents we had bought for people.

They had:

A HUGE double layer box of Thorntons Continental Chocs
An even bigger box of Lindt Champagne Truffles
Three Christmas Dog Selection Boxes
A tube of Catnip
A tub of cat choc drops
Four boxes of Christmas Dog Biscuits
A Lush Gift box full of things like massage bars and soaps (which they loved) and bath bombs (which they didnt like so much and were spat in foamy piles all over the bedroom carpet)
Anything else non-edible they shredded

And worst of all I had spent hours handpainting some dog treat jars for some doggy friends and they even managed to lick the glass paint off the jars!!

Funny enough, there was no signs of illness at all, even though I was panicking because they had eaten all that chocolate.

I was soooo upset :(