Smell My Feet

There are three types of grocery stores in the south:

1. The Uppity Grocer: a store full of lots of ingredients that you have no idea how to pronounce, let alone be able to afford to buy. These store can easily be identified by their display of cheeses, truffle oils and fancy people behind the meat counter who may have actually met the cow you are about to buy thanks to a tour of the organic beef farm.

2. The Middle Class Grocer: this is usually a large chain store that offers the usual fare with a few specialty sections of organic, vegetarian and gluten-free offerings. You know you're in a middle-class store when their generic brands have fancy labels to make you feel better about the fact you are really buying the rejects of the brand-name foods.

3. The Country Grocer: this store is usually found in an abandoned shopping center where a middle class grocery used to be located. Due to the giant jars of pickled foods, you really have to watch your kids so they don't ruin the pig's feet display.

I tend to shop at option two when restocking our cabinets, and those fancy generic labels really do make my pantry look very delectable. But when I'm looking for foods to feed my girls, I make a trip to the country store. A middle class or uppity grocery would never have all of the animal parts for sale that I use to make up my girls' raw diet. You can't find backs, necks, gizzards, livers or hearts at the normal meat counter - middle class folks might get scared. But at the country grocery store, they have all this - and more.

Yep, I said more. For the first time ever at a commercial grocery store - country or otherwise - I purchased a package of chicken feet for the girls to nibble on. Chicken feet, while attached to a live bird, aren't the prettiest things to look at. Chicken feet detached and piled into one of those butcher trays and wrapped in plastic wrap is down right gross and creepy. Even worse, is looking at a display full of them.

I really don't want to know who buys these other than people who feed raw. I'm pretty sure that anyone who practices voodoo or witchcraft would need the feet from a live bird and not those that are packaged, but maybe I'm wrong.

Nonetheless, my girls enjoy their mid-day snack, talons and all. But I've asked them not to get too used to such a delicacy. I really don't like seeing these things clawing to get out of the plastic bag in the bottom of my fridge every time I go to get a drink.

The Skinny

It's an old wives' tale that Southern women have the best skin of anyone in the U.S. With fewer wrinkles and better texture than our Northern counterparts, us Belles chalk up our flawless complexions to the excessive humidity and our tendency to wear more make up (which has SPF) than most women on this planet.

I don't think the same is true for Southern greyhounds. Spring, summer and fall in our house we fight a daily fight to keep skin allergies at bay. Unfortunately, Roxy has had a horrible allergy season so far and there's no end in sight.

It started with big puss bumps on her stomach as the grass started to grow. They were red and angry, but were easy to manage with regular cleaning. They didn't hurt her and I never caught her licking them. Next came the excessive chewing of the rump. We tried benadryl, some prescription antihistamines and medicated shampoos and it only provided limited relief.

Currently we are in the peeling stage. This picture isn't great as she is very embarrassed about her condition and prefers for me not to document it for the world to see, but I'm the one with opposable thumbs so I win. Her tummy is in a chronic peeling stage. After two weeks of antibiotics and some topical stuff, it still isn't much better - although the itching is less frequent.

I'm hoping after we're on the upswing with her skin. Maybe she needs to wear more sunscreen? Seka just thinks Roxy is after more attention. Whatever the reason, her skin isn't Georgia peach-perfect.