The Most Ridiculous Thing I Bought Just for My Dogs
What’s been on your dog-related shopping list lately? Tog toys, treats, maybe a new Kong and a jar of peanut butter? My most recent Amazon purchase for my pups, Cassius Thunderpaws and Truffle, was not a tennis ball or a bag of biscuits.
It was a refrigerator.
Technically, it’s for me and my sanity, not for them — they don’t care where I keep their food. But the purchase is totally about my pups. See, in the ongoing Battle for Fridge Space in our house, things got taken up a whole other level when we started cooking for the dogs.
Now, if it were just Truffle, our little senior Pomeranian, we would have managed. He has a hearty appetite, but a 15-pound dog can only eat so much. But Cash, on the other hand … we’re talking about a young dog who’s around 90 pounds now and may have another year to grow. And he eats a lot — like, a lot.
So when we added to the already-jam-packed shelves of our fridge an inventory of ingredients for cooking for them (pounds and pounds of meat, plus eggs and veggies), plus their prepped meals, I lost all hope of keeping the fridge organized and zen. Even with the nifty Snapware storage containers we bought, it’s simply a matter of math. There’s not enough room for our food and theirs.
The last straw was when I bought an after-Thansgiving sale turkey for them — we lost an entire shelf for days while it thawed, and had to shove the dogs’ containers of prepared food in every available nook and cranny. It was not pretty, and neither was my reaction every time I opened the door and set off a Jenga-like collapse of containers.
We’re lucky to have an expanded storage area off our kitchen that I like to call a butler’s pantry (because: Victorian house) but is really a glorified mudroom, and we just so happened to have a slot in there that is the exact right size to stash a mini-fridge. So after threatening for weeks to do it, one day last week I went digging around for Amazon Warehouse Deals and bought this cute little Danby fridge. It was a gamble; I got a $150 fridge for $90, with the warning that it would have “large cosmetic imperfection(s) on top, front, or sides of item.”
Buy: Danby Classic Compact Refrigerator, $150
I was in luck; the box was damaged but the fridge was in perfect shape. I felt like a kid at Christmas setting it up in the pantry and loading it up with containers of beef and carrot stew, jars of broth, and packs of meat. Will this be the final solution to my fridge dilemma? Maybe, maybe not. But clearing two creatures’ worth of food from the people fridge is definitely a start!
What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever bought for your pet?