wine country dog ezine ™: It's pumpkin time!

winecountrydog speaks

TILIN CORGI 1997-2014

I am Tilin, a Welsh corgi and wine country dog, aka @winecountrydog.

I started pawin the puter and dooin social media in 2008, after I had life-saving back surgery and had to sit-stay to recover. That is when I came to create wine country dog ezine™ — an independent pet-ezine.

My ancient self does have a few health pawblems, but my ortho surgeon gave me a chance to walk again. Other good vets and Mum have helped too. Myself goin wobbly but strong toward 17th BD in November 2014.

Luv to paw-write and tweet, and travel to meet new furriends and nice humans. Some of them write about wine or craft beer or food and health. Wine country has got nommy fresh whole foods and farmers markets. And wine country means most effurrywhere in world these days eh.

You find that my furbro, Jackie Nippers Corgi, does sometimes join me on adventures and on twitter. Our beloved Ani Meezer rarely does.

All three of us were rescued from diffurrent circumstances. Furbro is a "breeder rescue." We doo encourage adoption of furriends from good animal rescue charities.
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Howlo. I am Jackie Nippers Corgi (aka pawlitico™).

You may find me on walkies with furbro Tilin Corgi, and out at wine tastings and regional food adventures up and down Pacific coast. Sometimes on social media with furbro. We like to paw-write tasting notes for wine and food.

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Our thanks to Mum (aka winecountrydogma™) for editing, web dev, photography, pro fact-checking, and for grrreat homemade whole food meals. Mum is trained in D.A.R.T. and helps us paw out animal rescue info during disasters.

Text and images are copyrighted © 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by winecountrydog™. All content is original. All rights reserved. Do not republish on or off the internet without our written permission. Our email address is winecountrydog [at] gmail.com.

October 2, 2008

It's pumpkin time!

by pawlitico

You probably think that pumpkin time means we're celebrating the "pumpkin month" of October.

Yes, we love pumpkins. But what I mean by "pumpkin time" is our diet: My buddy Tilin Corgi and I started eating cooked pumpkin this past week 'cuz we've had a bit of . . . well, a touch of gastroenteritis — a nice big human term for the poopies.

I feel sheepish to admit that I swallowed some apricot pits. I know I warned everybuddy else not to do this in my piece "Confessions of a plum eater." But I lost track of what I was swallowing, and, oh howl, those pits carved their names all the way down my insides.

So one of our favorite veterinarians, Jona Jordan DVM, told us to eat 1/4 cup of cooked pumpkin and fast for 12 hours. Then we continued having pumpkin with our regular meals.

Before we could say "Corgis look great in Halloween costumes," our problem was solved. Now we're having pumpkin at practically every meal. Pumpkin is nutritious and has lots of fiber. Fiber helps push bad stuff out of the digestive tract and also makes a better stool.

Pumpkin is a funny word. According to "Pumpkins and More" at University of Illinois Extension, references to pumpkins go way back. The word pumpkin comes from the Greek word for "large melon," which is "pepon." The French turned it into "pompon." Then the English changed it to "pumpion." American colonists changed "pumpion" into "pumpkin." Woof? I dunno why.

If you're in our area, I hope you'll get to visit Petaluma Pumpkin Patch. There are gazillions of big and little pumpkins. There's also a giant four-acre corn maze, which is redesigned every year by Farmer Jim and then cut down right after Halloween to turn the stalks into silage for cattle.