Thanksgiving Dinner Fit for a Poodle!

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, always a major Big Deal here on the mountain. That all started decades ago when we lived in Oklahoma, and signed on as the communications directors for a grant-based hunger project called “The Whole World Family Supper” that was scheduled to be a Thanksgiving feast for everybody, everywhere.

All of a sudden our little family gatherings just weren’t enough anymore. By the time we’d moved to Florida and became full time performers - with a friends list that included circus folk, traveling medicine shows and all sorts of other itinerant musicians and crusty jugglers - Thanksgiving became an annual pilgrimage to a St. Augustine boatyard an ex-Air Force friend managed. Price of admission was at least one homeless person or otherwise destitute person, and it got bigger every year. By the time we moved to North Carolina the boatyard Thanksgiving feast (a pot-luck affair) offered 4 turkeys and two hams pit-cooked by our host, at least 60 people, and stretched out with leftovers for the entire 4-day holiday weekend.

Now that we’re here on the mountain it’s still a Big Deal. We average at least 24 people every year, which is a heck of a crowd to host in a 28′ square cabin complete with dogs. And we often have 7 or 8 dog guests too, friends of our poods and strays, part of our many friends and family’s families. They get Thanksgiving Dinner too. It is a family supper, after all, and dogs are family.

We usually have a couple of turkeys, sometimes three. Not everybody eats turkey - some here are certifiable vegetarians, others are vegetarians who make a special exception for holiday feasts. I usually cook one a day or two in advance, slice up nicely and pack into tupperware for seconds and thirds. That way I only have to cook one for presentation’s sake, whether the food table’s on the deck, out in the yard, or inside the cabin because it’s raining (or, God forbid, snowing). It can get really crowded when that happens, so we feed the dogs in the shed and quite a few guests will choose to consume their meal there too.

Now, dogs can’t eat everything I make for Thanksgiving. It takes some thought and preparation to concoct them a fine homemade dog feast. By cooking the extra turkey beforehand, I’ve the neck and giblets as well as juices and pickings that we don’t need to use for the dog meal. To that I can add the neck and giblets from the T-Day turkey too. I boil these good, pick off any meat from the neck, and discard the bones. I get an extra bag or two of bread stuffing mix (it’s cheap), sometimes go ahead and cook up a cake pan of cornbread the night before too. The bread and cornbread gets crumbled into a big tupperware container and I pour the giblets boiling water and roast drippings over it, mix it all up well.

Trick for the dogs is not to add any salt, any butter, any cooking oils, any chopped onions, celery or herbs that I use in preparing stuffing for humans. I add turkey skin to the giblet boiling water too, but this has to be removed from the mix because it’s hard for dogs to digest. Don’t make gravy out of this stuff, the dogs will like it just as it is. While making up the side dishes I usually put a scoop or two of mashed potatoes and some hopping john into the bucket to mix in well too. Chop those giblets up so they’re the size of the picked turkey meat.

I divvy this all up in old pie tins according to how many dogs are present. Feeding them down in the shed while we’re eating keeps them from being underfoot and begging food they shouldn’t have from the human diners. Dogs shouldn’t have anything sweet, fruity, highly salted or with large butter/oil parts. They should of course never have turkey bones either.

The links below offer useful information about what dogs can and can’t share of your Thanksgiving dinner. Plan ahead and your canine family members won’t have to be left out of the celebration.

Links:

Could Thanksgiving Dinner Kill Your Dog?

A Dog’s Thanksgiving Day

Include Fido In The Feast!

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Filed under Family Feasts, Health, Holidays, Nutrition |