h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

White dog poo, PP?

My dog does that the morning after she has had a lamb leg bone!!!



GT

White dog poo was referenced by comedian Sarah Silverman. She asks philosophically, in a discussion of the 70s as the good old days, 'what ever happened to white dog poo?'

It shocked me, not the word poo on television, but the fact that she was right; I hadn't seen or thought of it in years, probably the 70s.

Since she didn't elaborate further and left the question hanging, I have been thinking about it ever since with no resolution other than a theory that it must have been something, perhaps an additive, that was part of dog food then which is not part of it now.

As an essentially optimistic person I was thinking it might have been some sort of inert filler like chalk which was taken out of the mix for the sake of better nutrition. But testimony from gandalfstwin suggests it's more likely real meat (mutton scraps) they've deleted from the recipes.

My dog always ate fresh red meat and an assortment of table scraps and his poop was always delightfully warm and steamy and dark. Even when it dried it did not develop that white crust one used to see a few decades back.

Any vets or nutritionists out there who might solve this mystery?
I'd hate to have to start a new thread.


~jwf~

~jwf~

As I replied to PP, it must have something to do with an excessive amount of calcium intake eating cooked lamb bone. You could be right about the chalk. It may be that the additive now is a different compound of calcium that it more easily absorbed.......




GT

Ground up bones, calcium...

By George I think you may have it, g.

No doubt modern science has found a better market for all the skeletal remains of our daily animal slaughters. The price of a small bag or box of 'bone meal' at a garden supply store is much more than a tin of Alpo or Dr Ballard's.

In the good old days butchers used to win customers by giving their bones to dog owners. But today's modern supermarkets get most of their meat pre-cut by the wholesalers' who seldom leave a bone in anything. And when a dog owner asks for bones today he is told they only have 'soup bones' (shank) and at a price.

I wonder if the pharmaceutical corps are using all the bones to make 'calcium' pills?


~jwf~

Possiblly, ~jwf~

Possibly!!!



GT

jwf is right. Not about the bones going into canned dog food, but about dogs not eating so many bones these days. The only meat I see at supermarkets 'bone in' is shoulder of lamb. (Poultry doesn't count - you don't feed chicken bones to a dog.) I don't even see that much meat on the bone at butcher's shops, yet that used to be part of the butcher's trade.

In case younger people are still going "white dog poo" it is worth pointing out two things.

1) It only went white when it had been left in the sun for a week or so, it went very powdery and if hit correctly with a shoe would fly everywhere in a cloud.

2) Dog owners who cleaned up after their dogs were very few - if indeed any did - there was MUCH more poo on the pavements, which is why I still walk with eyes to the ground.

As well as white poo - there was, what I termed, the "shopping centre dog poo" this appeared overnight and was HUGE - must have been deposited by a dog the size of a horse - but we never saw it.

U91473

>> ...don't see that much meat on the bone at butcher's shops, yet that used to be part of the butcher's trade. <<


Glad to see they still have butcher's shops where you live.

All the classic ones are gone here (Halifax, Nova Scotia) unable to compete with the Supermarket chains (where the only butchering is to grind up hamburger from other cuts as they approach their sell-by date). There are still a couple of 'Meats and Delicatesan' shops but these also buy most of their roasts, chops and steaks precut from wholesale distributors and make most of their profit from 'deli' meats they merely slice from pre-packed loafs.

And, if I may indulge a personal observation, I am amazed that this thread has come round to butcher shops again.
Way back in 2002 at Post # 71 I was also waxing nostalgic for the smell of bloody sawdust on the floor of butcher shops.

Maybe if I had kids (I mean kids who knew who I was) I wouldn't be quite so focused (obsessed?) on the loss of butchers as a significant issue for tomorrow's children.


~jwf~

Just spending my lunch break watching an episode of Red Dwarf - in which Kryten is "developing" film - if any children were to watch that in a few years it would be meaningless - very strange.

This is developing into the "Things you don't see any more" thread, which also analysed the white dog poo phenomenon.

I was remembering this morning how I once left my two toddlers to play in the paddling pool when I was alone with them for a short while on a camp site and I desperately had to go to the ladies. My kids won't be doing that with their kids, I'll bet.

Absolutely not in light of this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8147570.stm

I'm not sure where I stand on this so I will not otherwise comment.

t.

That's a fairly disingenuous take on it - headline-wise at least. The money was never actually payed to the family - it's been held in trust by the lawyers pending the results of this appeal. So it's not like they bought a house with the dosh in the meantime.

The result is fair enough I think. It's hard to imagine how any company or anyone can fully prevent this sort of sad occurrence. Some things are just sad accidents and no money can bring that kid back anyway.

Much as it's sad that a child has died, it's nice to see the courts not assigning blame for an accident.
It was an accident, and it's sad, but it's nobody's fault. It makes me feel slightly better about the justice system.

One thing that struck me today as something you may have to explain to less bright children is the fact that spectacles are called glasses - I don't think I have had a pair made from glass for over 20 years.

Do you mean "why spectacles are called glasses"? I think most children wouldn't know what I was talking about if I said "spectacles".

My current glasses are actually made from Japanese mineral glass. Great stuff, no scratch marks despite several years' wear and tear and at the time I got them, considerably thinner than plastic ones would have been.

Vesta Curry.....come to think of it, any dried Vesta products.
I used to like the Beef Risotto (In an emergency-havent-got-time-to-make-propoer-food sort of way)but it seemed to vanish overnight from every shop. Does anyone know if it can still be got hold of?

It seems Vesta Curry is still available, if you want that sort of thing. Don't know where you get them from, though.

Mmm Beef Risotto Vesta - a fave for camping as it was the only one you could do in one pan.

and here is another one - the "Johnny Seven" One Man Army kids gun. (Look it up on t'internet) About three feet long, it launched rocketes, grenades, bullets and for good measure was also a machine gun with detachable cap pistol. In todays "Ooo Errr Missus" climate you would be jailed on sight these days for being caught in the street with it...
They used to cost £8 in the sixties - now a mint condition one in the box goes for about £2,000. Aint non PC life grand?