Good for both of you! A lot of women just can't give up their authority in the kitchen, just like a lot of men think of cooking as something they shouldn't be expected to do. imo, both groups are missing a lot of fun. DH took over the grocery shopping shortly after he retired. The first few months were both exasperating and hilarious, but he's gotten to be very good at it. Of course an incentive is that if he wants 'junk food' like ice cream or potato chips, he has to buy it himself. He doesn't do a lot of cooking but he did learn to read a recipe... as long as I annotate it as to pan size and list the exact order of steps. Some time ago Suzi mentioned writing everything down that she wanted to remember. I'm trying to do that with all the kitchen details and recipes. A lot of my cooking is seasoned with a 'dash' of this or a 'glug' of that, so I'm having to measure and experiment before the recipe can be used by anyone else.

Brenda, I fiddled with that photo for a couple of HOURS before I finally GAVE UP and went back to the pre-edited version... everything I did just made it look WORSE, no matter how close I zoomed in -- even 800% -- but I was using dog-cheap (sic) software... Besides, the green gives us something to talk about, huh? And toady, as for that off-the-one-ear pose, glad ya like it... I kinda do, too -- especially since I had to settle for it, as he had just about HAD IT with posing at that point, and every time we tried putting the hat on straight, it either fell off the back of his head, or slid down completely over his eyes, and then he shook it off... Didn't really matter, as a picture of a party hat with a puppydog snout poking out from underneath it wouldn't really tell ya much about who was under the hat, now would it? :) Jeff

Labmomma- Did I say anything about court? :-) Let me tell you the nutshell version of a story of how the dog whisper helped probably save our furry little behinds. I told this story on another forum and all the cesar-haters came out and told me how stupid i was so you're getting the short version. After watching the show, I decided I would make more of an effort to keep the dogs to my side instead of in front of me while on walks. I wouldn't say they had a pulling problem but the one would pee on everything in sight and the pup was starting to learn how that looked like fun so I felt like it was time to see if I can walk the dogs how cesar does on tv. And no I didn't contact a professional before using the technique like it says in the disclaimer! I thought I'd take a chance. Well after some time walks became a lot more enjoyable and didn't need someone to reinsert my arm into it's socket if a squirrel ran by and there's no more pee-mail. So there's something to be said for more structured walks and not letting the dogs go first. That's only half of it. Ok so we're on a sidewalk where some rednecks keep their pitbull looking dogs out in their yard and never walk them or probably do anything remotely responsible so the dogs had tunnneled under the fence. I didn't know this until a mean looking growling and barking dog ambushes us. My first instinct: soil trousers. My second instinct: must get out of here.* â note there is a "*" Normally these dogs of mine are very friendly, they think every person and dog is their friend and wants to give them cookies. They are personalities that people would kill for in a dog. The mean dog is circling us and I was trying to act like i didn't notice and wanted the boys to play along like we were all wearing iron clad armour. They stayed with the program, focusing on me and where we were going, not jerking me away to go mess with the mean dog. We managed to evade persuit, not getting bitten. I credit the dog whisper show for making me aware that perfecting the walk was possible and it paid off big. Now for that * I was talking about. On a recent episode Cesar talked about what do do in a situation where if you are face to face with a mad dog, you don't turn around and run away. He didn't give instructions on what to do, it was the post office seminar episode, but whatever we're still alive and the dogs did not engage thank god. He also says to be calm and assertive and not show fear. I would be very surprsied if I was not showing or smelling like fear but I'm sure I probably was pretty calm and assertive.

I hope your dog is better this morning. If not, you would probably want to visit a vet, given that it sounds like she ate a lot of it. Wood ash is very alkali, which could be harsh on her digestive tract if she ate a lot. If she gulped it down in quantity, she may have gotten a larger piece that is stuck in her gut. My old lab had a weak tummy and she LOVED to eat BBQ ash. We didn't allow it, but every so often she'd get into it and nibble a little down. Funny though, it never made her throw up. When she was young we use to get charcoal dog biscuits at a local pet store; for her weak tummy and bad breath and we always figured that was why she would try to get into the charcoal and ash- to sooth her tummy. If your dog is not normally one who eats "stuff" she shouldn't, then she may have some other digestive issues that are driving her to eat things like that. Good luck.