Cucumbers?!!

I've mentioned before, briefly, our other dog, Sheba.  She was a Boxer-mix that we got when she was a puppy from a co-worker of my husband's, and grew up into a really sweet dog, great with the kids and very protective.  For some reason or another, she seemed to think that she was supposed to be Chops' protector as well.  But that's another story for later.


One summer, we planted a vegetable garden in the back of the very small rental house we lived in at the time.  It was our first attempt at doing a garden ourselves, and we made a big one, and were really pleased at how well everything grew and at the quantity of delicious vegetables we got out of it.  We planted all sorts of things.


One thing I began noticing, though, was that where the cucumbers climbed up the wire fencing, once they'd bloomed and the cucumbers started getting to pretty good size, any of them that slipped through the fencing to the outside while they'd grown looked like something had been eating at them, and I assumed it was some sort of bug or worm at the time.


Until one day, when I'd picked all the ready cucumbers, sorting through to look for the ones  that had "bad" parts, and was going through the bag.  Sheba was sitting patiently at my feet, staring at me as I separated the good ones from the bad ones, and I teasingly asked her, "Do you want this?" and held out one of the cucumbers, not expecting for a second that she'd actually take it.  After all, dogs don't like cucumbers!!!  Do they?


Apparently, Sheba did!  She took the cucumber gently from my hand, walked over to the other side of the yard, then lay down with the cucumber between her front paws, chewing on it as if it were the best treat ever!  It was then that the realization dawned of what was really going on with the bitten cucumbers that had slipped through the fence.  Yep, Sheba was taking nibbles off the ends that poked through the fence, though not being at all grabby about it, seemingly just taking a taste off the part she could get to.

If nothing else, she was very dainty and polite about it.  Obviously, though, we were not meant to have pets that didn't have some sort of quirk in their personality.  Definitely keeps life interesting.