Outdoor Restaurant Seating Now Includes Your Dog
Don’t want to leave your dog home when you go out to eat? You no longer have to, as long as you dine on the restaurant’s outdoor patio or other outdoor seating area — and as long as the restaurant you have in mind allows it. The Food and Drug Administration has updated its food code so that in all 50 states, restaurants can choose to let your dog remain with you as you dine.
There are rules. The dog can’t go inside — period. And servers are not allowed to pet or otherwise touch your dog. Your pet is not allowed on the seating, either; she has to remain on the ground. But the bottom line is that in many more establishments around the country, eating out no longer has to mean leaving out your canine family member. We suspect that if business improves for those restaurants that allow dogs in the outdoor dining area, more and more eating establishments will come on board.
Keep Your Dog Away from the
Cocoa Mulch!
Do you allow your dog in the backyard? And do you use cocoa mulch in and around your flower beds? Keep him away from it. Cocoa mulch contains theobromine — the same ingredient that makes chocolate dangerous for dogs. Ingesting too much of it can make a dog very sick and is potentially lethal. Tufts-trained veterinarian Nahvid Etedali, DVM, points out that cocoa mulch even smells like chocolate, which a dog might find enticing — all the more reason to make sure your pet doesn’t get into it.
Dogs As Art
DaVinci, Gainsborough, Hockney — great artists through the centuries have used their dogs as their subjects. Even a dog that looks strikingly like a cavalier King Charles spaniel was recently found under the surface of a Picasso painting that depicted a scene in Paris.
Anyone who will be in London by October 15 can see more than 50 pieces of canine art brought together in a collection currently showing at the Wallace Collection in that city’s Manchester Square. In addition to depictions of dogs by masters you’ve heard of, there’s a sculpture of grey-hounds in ancient Rome and many other lovingly wrought pieces that serve as testament to our bond with our canine family members through the millennia.
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No, not like that. Bring a comfy mat or blanket for the dog to lie on, and make sure your pet has a bowl of fresh water.
www.tuftsyourdog.com Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University
